Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Short communication Traumatic injury in a cranium found at Rakhigarhi cemetery of Harappan civilization as anthropological evidence of interpersonal violence Hyejin Lee a,b , Pranjali Waghmare c , Yongjun Kim a , Jong Ha Hong a , Yogesh Yadav c , Nilesh Jadhav c , Dong Hoon Shin a, ⁎ , Vasant Shinde c, ⁎⁎ a Lab of Bioanthropology, Paleopathology and History of Diseases, Department of Anatomy/Institute of Forensic Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, South Korea b Ministry of National Defense Agency of KIA Recovery & Identification, Seoul, South Korea c Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Deemed University, Pune 411006, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Rakhigarhi Harappan civilization Trauma Injury Fracture Interpersonal violence ABSTRACT The Harappan Civilization is notable as one of the earliest complex societies spanning the vast area of northwest India and Pakistan. To uncover patterns of violent injury among the Harappan people, anthropologists have looked for signs of trauma on skeletons. Notwithstanding the pioneering achievements made thus far, there is still more work to do before violence among the Harappan people will be comprehensively understood from the socio-cultural perspective. In this study, we report new evidence of violence-related trauma found among re- mains unearthed from the Mature Harappan period (2600–1900 BCE) cemetery of Rakhigarhi, located about 150 km northwest of Delhi. Briefly, in the left frontal area of the cranium of an adult female (BR12), we found a depression fracture that might have been caused by a direct blow to the skull with a round-tipped object. Since the traumatic lesion of BR12 had completely healed, the skull fracture is very unlikely to have been the direct cause of death. Our paleopathological report provides significant insight into interpersonal violence that might have occurred among the Harappan people. Proof of whether or not Rakhigarhi society was a hierarchy beset by structural violence differing by class and/or other categories, however, must await future excavations of addi- tional areas of the Rakhigarhi and/or nearby Harappan cemetery. 1. Introduction At its heyday, the sphere of Harappan Civilization's influence cov- ered a vast area of South Asia, specifically northwest India and Pakistan, that was much larger than the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations combined (Kenoyer, 1998; Possehl, 1993; Shinde, 2016a). Since the first report of Sir John Marshall in 1924, archaeologists around the world have unraveled the tangled history of the Harappan Civilization's people and society (Shinde, 2016b). The Harappan Civi- lization generally is divided into Early (3300–2600 BCE), Mature (2600–1900 BCE), and Late (1900–1700 BCE) periods (Wright, 2010), though recent excavations at Ghaggar Basin sites have effectively pu- shed its beginning back to 5500 BCE (Shinde, 2016b; Shinde et al., 2018). The Mature Harappan period is characterized by well-planned urban centers. According to excavation reports published to date, the big cities seem to have exercised remarkable influence over thousands of satellite towns, villages and settlements by means of a well-organized bureaucracy and consistent symbolic and ideological systems (Coningham and Young, 2015; Gupta, 1999; Robbins Schug, 2017; Robbins Schug et al., 2012; Shinde, 2016b). As for the skeletons found at Harappa, the center of the Harappan Civilization, anthropologists have analyzed evident signs of trauma (Lovell, 2014; Robbins Schug et al., 2012), their data indicating pre- valence and pattern of traumatic injury and interpersonal violence in Harappan society (Lovell, 1997; Walker, 2001; Wedel and Galloway, 1999). Among 160 individuals recovered from three burial areas (Area G, Cemetery H and Cemetery R-37) at Harappa, Robbins Schug et al. (2012) found signs of trauma in the post-crania of 3 individuals (1.9%) and the crania of 9 (15.5%). The prevalence of cranial trauma was relatively lower in the Mature Harappan period burial ground (R-37), post-urban period burials (Area G and Cemetery H Stratum II) showing many more such signs. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.11.001 Received 14 August 2018; Received in revised form 27 October 2018; Accepted 1 November 2018 ⁎ Correspondence to: D.H. Shin, Lab of Bioanthropology, Paleopathology and History of Diseases, Institute of Forensic Science, Department of Anatomy, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, South Korea. ⁎⁎ Correspondence to: V. Shinde, Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, India. E-mail addresses: cuteminjae@gmail.com (D.H. Shin), vasant.shinde@dcpune.ac.in (V. Shinde). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 23 (2019) 362–367 2352-409X/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. T