Faunal Remains from Shikarpur, a Harappan Site in Gujarat, India

This paper deals with the preliminary observations of the analysis conducted on the faunal remains unearthed at the site of Shikarpur. A single trench ES4 was selected as a research sample from the excavation conducted by the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History; M.S. University of Baroda, Gujarat State, India in 2007-08. A total of 6250 skeletal fragments were analysed of which only 3219 (51.50%) could be identified. All the skeletal elements were carefully observed for signatures of bone modifications done by natural as well as human agencies. The analysis revealed a large number of animal species including domestic mammals, wild mammals, reptiles, birds and molluscs. In addition, a few skeletal fragments of fish and crab were also recovered.