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Cited by 73Archaeology and ancient environmental studiesAmazonian Archaeology and EthnohistoryPacific and Southeast Asian Studies

Shifting cultivators in South Asia: Expansion, marginalisation and specialisation over the long term

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Kingwell-Banham, Eleanor, Fuller, Dorian Q.·2012·Quaternary International
DOI 10.1016/j.quaint.2011.05.025
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Abstract

This paper will consider alternative perspectives on the long-term history of shifting cultivation in India and Sri Lanka. Ethnographic and historical accounts of shifting cultivation, often by groups marginal to centres of urbanism and agrarian civilisation, are reviewed. Shifting cultivation persists in hill regions which are more marginal for sedentary, high intensity agriculture and state procurement of taxation. This can be considered as a strategy both to exploit more marginal lands and to avoid state domination. The origins of this historical equilibrium are hypothesized to lie with the expansion of later Neolithic agriculture (4000–3000 BP) and the development of hierarchical polities in the Indian plains in the Iron Age (mainly after 3000 BP). The archaeological record of early agriculture indicates that cultivation precedes sedentary villages, suggesting that shifting cultivation may have been a widespread economic system in the Neolithic, in both the Ganges Valley and the Deccan Plateau of South India. These areas are more suited to sedentary cultivation that could support higher population densities. Therefore, as populations grew in the Neolithic the economic system shifted to sedentary agriculture. The expansion of trade networks, hierarchical societies and demographic density pushed shifting cultivation practices into increasingly marginal settings, where this became an interdependent strategy. Specialist hunter–gatherers trading in forest products became an increasingly important aspect of forest exploitation as did cultivation of ‘cash crop trees’. The potential to detect the effect of some of these processes in archaeological and palynological evidence is explored.

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  • Some pathways led from sedentary hunter-gatherers to early farmers, as in Southwest Asia or Yangtze China; others shifted from mobile hunting to the addition of herding first, for example in Africa, or from mobile hunting and gathering to mobile forms of agriculture like shifting cultivation, as in India, New Guinea, or South America.

    “Although some pathways led from sedentary hunter-gatherers to early farmers, as in Southwest Asia or Yangtze China (68), others shifted from mobile hunting to the addition of herding first, for example in Africa (70), or from mobile hunting and gathering to mobile forms of agriculture like shifting cultivation, as in India (75), New Guinea (76), or South America (77).”

    From Used planet: a global history (2013) · cites this paper as [75]

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Authors
Kingwell-Banham, E., & Fuller, D. Q.
Affiliations
University College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Fuller, Dorian Q.
ORCID
Venue
Quaternary International
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2012-02
Volume
249
Pages
84-95
ISSN
1040-6182 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.quaint.2011.05.025
OpenAlex
W2034283188
Cited by
73
References
103
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
FWCI
3.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Quaternary International (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Natural Environment Research Council (UK)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
  • Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
Keywords
shifting cultivation, Neolithic agriculture, Iron Age, marginal land, state taxation, hunter-gatherers, forest products, forest exploitation, trade networks, population density, paleoecology, Deccan Plateau, South Asia, India, Sri Lanka

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