Jennifer Bates. 2024. The origins of agriculture in the Bronze Age Indus Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 978-1-009-42444-8 hardback £105.

The origins of agriculture in the Bronze Age Indus Civilization presents an ambitious synthesis of archaeobotanical evidence from across the Indus Civilisation between c. 3200 and 1500 BCE.Despite its title, the volume is less concerned with initial domestication processes than with reconstructing agricultural strategies, crop choices and foodways across the Early, Mature and Late Harappan phases.In doing so, it offers one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of plant-based subsistence and its social implications in Bronze Age South Asia.A major strength of the book lies in its extensive review of published archaeobotanical data.Jennifer Bates synthesises a substantial and previously dispersed body of evidence, organising it taxonomically and thematically to provide a coherent analytical framework.The depth of synthesis is impressive, and the academic tone is clearly aimed at a specialist readership, particularly archaeobotanists.Nonetheless, many sections are written in an accessible and didactic manner (e.g.theories of rice domestication in Chapter 7, the rationale behind multiproxy approaches in Chapter 9, crop-processing models in Chapter 11), making them valuable for researchers in training.The structure of the book is carefully planned.Chapters are logically sequenced and transitions are explicitly signposted, with each section clarifying how it contributes to the overarching argument.This is helpful in a work that navigates diverse datasets, regions and methodological approaches.The result is a text that remains readable despite the substantial amount of information presented.The book's most significant contribution is its commitment to nuance and variability.Bates moves beyond binary or monocausal explanatory models and the publication challenges simplified narratives of agricultural 'revolutions' or uniform processes.Instead, she foregrounds diversity, flexibility and what has been termed a 'diverse sameness': shared cultural frameworks that were adjusted across different ecological and social contexts.Agricultural systems in the Indus world are presented not as static or homogeneous but as dynamic, regionally embedded and responsive to local conditions.This perspective is effective in questioning long-standing assumptions linking urbanisation directly to agricultural intensification or to reliance on a narrow suite of staple crops.The book builds on Heather Miller's (2006Miller's ( , 2015) ) proposal that the development of Indus agricultural systems-particularly water-management practices-over time likely reflects extensification rather than intensification, and this analysis is especially illuminating.Bates demonstrates that shifts in crop assemblages usually respond to adaptive,