Editing Mehrgarh (section)

==Lifestyle and technology==
Early Mehrgarh residents lived in [[mud brick]] houses, stored their grain in granaries, fashioned tools with [[chalcolithic|local copper ore]], and lined their large basket containers with [[bitumen]]. They cultivated six-row [[barley]], [[Einkorn wheat|einkorn]] and [[emmer]] wheat, [[jujube]]s and [[Date (fruit)|dates]], and herded sheep, goats and cattle. Residents of the later period (5500&nbsp;BCE to 2600&nbsp;BCE) put much effort into crafts, including [[flint knapping]], [[Tanning (leather)|tanning]], bead production, and [[metal working]].<ref>[[Gregory Possehl|Possehl, Gregory L.]] 1996. "Mehrgarh". ''Oxford Companion to Archaeology'', edited by Brian Fagan. [[Oxford University Press]]</ref> Mehrgarh is probably the earliest known center of agriculture in South Asia.<ref name="Harris1996">{{cite book|last=Meadow|first=Richard H.|editor=David R. Harris|title=The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zkteuesBwpQC&pg=PA393|access-date=10 September 2011|year=1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-1-85728-538-3|pages=393–|archive-date=9 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220709142150/https://books.google.com/books?id=zkteuesBwpQC&pg=PA393|url-status=live}}</ref>

The oldest known example of the [[Lost-wax casting|lost-wax technique]] comes from a 6,000-year-old wheel-shaped copper amulet found at Mehrgarh. The [[amulet]] was made from unalloyed copper, an unusual innovation that was later abandoned.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Thoury|first1=M.|display-authors=etal|title=High spatial dynamics-photoluminescence imaging reveals the metallurgy of the earliest lost-wax cast object|journal=[[Nature Communications]]|date=2016|volume=7|doi=10.1038/ncomms13356|pmid=27843139|pmc=5116070|ref=Thoury 2016|pages=13356|bibcode=2016NatCo...713356T}}</ref>