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Synopsis This book, unique in its kind, attempts to define the factors responsible for famines in pre-and proto-historic periods of Indian history based on archaeological data in ecological context and literary sources. An extensive study of archaeological reports, covering a large chronological span, from the Harappan cultural horizon till the beginning of Christian er5a, reveal of numerous droughts and floods which devastated many geographical units with human settlements from time to time. Ecological degeneration due to concentration of population and degradation due to deforestation, contributed largely to the failures in agricultural sector. The author has analyzed the economic factors related to cultivation process, agricultural products and their distribution. She has further elaborated why and how the human relationship, community structure and social behavioural pattern suffered and got into the process of transformation due to severe hardship of famines.