Taphonomic analysis of Terebralia palustris assemblage from the prehistoric midden site of Bambhanka near Dholavira, District Kachchh, Gujarat (India)

‘Shell-middens’ represent a unique category of archaeological deposits of anthropic origin, comprising accumulations of discarded and broken shells intermixed with cultural objects like stone stools. Typically located along coastal shorelines, they preserve pertinent information about the site's paleoenvironment (eg, mangroves and swamps), the ancient inhabitants’ subsistence strategies, and their socio-techno-economic culture(s). Midden sites, recently discovered near the Bronze-Age Harappan Civilisation site of Dholavira in Western India, and the sixth-millennium BCE antiquity of one of them, called Bambhanka, has enabled its correlation with the Makran coast sites datable between the eighth and fifth millennium BP. This has resulted in a more nuanced understanding of the region's prehistory, pushed back by at least two millennia prior to the Harappans’ emergence. The dominant gastropod identified at Bambhanka is Terebralia palustris, a mangrove species present in varying states of integrity. Quantitative measures like NISP (773) and NRE (264) counts, macro and microscopic (stereo and scanning electron) analyses, and X-ray diffraction have been employed to discern the population structure and agents causing their depositional patterns, drawing taxonomic and taphonomic parallels with evidences from Pakistan's Las Bela Karachi and Lower Sindh regions. Continued exploitation of similar shell species has also been recorded in other Harappan inland sites as well like Mohenjodaro and Lothal, besides Dholavira. After emphasising the significance of this species and the sites created by its remains in the past, this paper attempts to understand the change in the shells’ morphology with unusual breakage patterns that primarily resulted from anthropogenic actions with some post-depositional influence, and to demonstrate that they are not mere natural occurrences.