Ans. A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence rather than to the market. Henceforth, "Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence economy is moneyless and relies on natural resources to provide for basic needs through hunting, gathering and agriculture. In a subsistence economy, economic surplus is minimal and only used to trade for basic goods and there is no industrialization. In hunting and gathering societies, resources are often if not opposition of it, a non-agricultural economy. Let we understood this concept in the context of the Harappan civilization under following two headings:-
1.
Subsistence Economy and Harappan Civilization
Farming,
animal husbandry, fruit gathering, fishing and hunting comprise the sphere of
activities that provide the basic means of survival, which is food. We are, in
the Harappan period, dealing with well developed farming regime that utilized
field years round.
Fruits
would also have been eaten and may have been grown or nurtured such as pomegranates,
dates and grapes. Gathering of wild fruits such as jujube or ber is also
evident from burnt speciems found at sites. Harappan sites have also given
evidence, in the form of bones, for wild animal species, such as deer, boar and
so forth that again must have been part of human diet. These species would have
been obtained through hunting practiced either by the Harappan themselves on
occasional expeditions or by other communities who traded meat for other
produce, such as grains, with the Harappans. Harappan knowledge of wild animals
transcended those species used for food. Harappan seals provide evidence of
wild animals such as elephant, rhinoceres and tiger that would not have been
part of their diet.
Living
near water bodies and rivers also meant the possibility of fishing. Excavations
have revealed the bones of several varieties of Indus fish at Mohenjodaro. Sea
fish were also consumed as is known from a site like Balakot. Marine fish, in
fact, were transported as a food source inland to settlements, such as Harappa.
Evidence for fishing has also been recovered in the form of tools such as
copper fish hooks.
The
implications of all the above is that Harappan agriculture provided a
well-rounded range of crops with varied cereals, oil and fibre crops. Combined
with animal protein, it showed that the Harappan diet was a varied one.
Agriculture was also intensive in that the same fields were used for growing
more than a single annual crop.
2.
Non-Subsistence Economy and Harappan Civilization Following are some
evidences:-
(i).
Harappan agriculture was intensive.
(ii).
The area available for fields around a city was limited due to constraints on
travelling too far between the home and the field.
(iii).
Thus, not every household would have had its own fields.
(iv).
Numerous individuals/household would have had to more to other occupations.
Hence,
while farming would have been one of the occupations in a Harappan city, a city
was actually known for varied occupations, requiring other kinds of skills. The
demand too for different kinds of work, such as construction, maintenance,
ritual and so forth, would have meant that these were performed by individuals
specialised in them. In some cases, these skills were the accumulation of
several generations of expertise such as potting, in some new skills were
developed such as of constructing drainage channels or the carving of steatite
seals. One of the distinctive features of urbanism rests in the diversity of
occupations, a situation that we can clearly see in the Harappan cities.
Non-agricultural occupations that provided the means of livelihood for several individuals were unusual in another sense in Bronze Age cities that functioned without coinage. This meant that individuals who provided various services for other individuals, households and communities had to be compensated for their labour in ways without money. For example, brick makers who made the millions of fired bricks for building houses at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the masons who built the monumental architecture of the cities, those who cleaned the streets and drains had to be provided with their subsistence. Bronze Age cities are known for this large scale use of labour for varied purposes.
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