Post 1980 studies indicate that food production was largely
indigenous to the Indus Valley. It is known that the people of
Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and barley and the major
cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived
from two-row barley (see Shaffer and Liechtenstein 1995, 1999).
Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the
Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an
indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support
interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex
social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but
not isolated, cultural developments." Indus civilization
agriculture must have been highly productive; after all, it was
capable of generating surpluses sufficient to support tens of
thousands of urban residents who were not primarily engaged in
agriculture. It relied on the considerable technological
achievements of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough.
Still, very little is known about the farmers who s