Food:
Bamboo can also be utilized as a biofuel crop.[33][34]
The bamboo shoot in its fermented state forms an important ingredient in
cuisines across the Himalayas. In Assam, India, for example, it is
called khorisa. In Nepal, a delicacy popular across ethnic boundaries consists
of bamboo shoots fermented with turmeric and oil, and cooked with potatoes
into a dish that usually accompanies rice (alu tama (आलु तामा) in Nepali).
Pickled bamboo, used as a condiment, may also be made from the pith of the
young shoots.
The sap of young stalks tapped during the rainy season may be fermented to
make ulanzi (a sweet wine) or simply made into a soft drink. Bamboo leaves
are also used as wrappers for steamed dumplings which usually contains
glutinous rice and other ingredients.
Pickled bamboo shoots (Nepali: तामा tama) are cooked with black-eyed beans
as a delicacy in Nepal. Many Nepalese restaurants around the world serve
this dish as aloo bodi tama. Fresh bamboo shoots are sliced and pickled with
mustard seeds and turmeric and kept in glass jar in direct sunlight for the best
taste. It is used alongside many dried beans in cooking during winters. Baby
shoots (Nepali: tusa) of a very different variety of bamboo
(Nepali: निगालो Nigalo) native to Nepal is cooked as a curry in hilly regions.
In Sambalpur, India, the tender shoots are grated into
juliennes and fermented to prepare kardi. The name is derived from the
Sanskrit word for bamboo shoot, karira. This fermented bamboo shoot is used
in various culinary preparations, notably amil, a sour vegetable soup. It is also
made into pancakes using rice flour as a binding agent. The shoots that have
turned a little fibrous are fermented, dried, and ground to sand-sized particles
to prepare a garnish known as hendua. It is also cooked with tender pumpkin
leaves to make sag green leaves.
In Konkani cuisine, the tender shoots (kirlu) are grated and cooked with
crushed jackfruit seeds to prepare kirla sukke.
Kitchenware[edit]
The empty hollow in the stalks of larger bamboo is often used to cook food in
many Asian cultures. Soups are boiled and rice is cooked in the hollows of
fresh stalks of bamboo directly over a flame. Similarly, steamed tea is
sometimes rammed into bamboo hollows to produce compressed forms of Pu-
erh tea. Cooking food in bamboo is said to give the food a subtle but
distinctive taste.
In addition, bamboo is frequently used for cooking utensils within many
cultures, and is used in the manufacture of chopsticks. In modern times, some
see bamboo tools as an ecofriendly alternative to other manufactured utensils.
Fuel[edit]
Bamboo charcoal has been traditionally used as fuel in China and Japan.
Writing pen[edit]
In old times, people in India used hand made pens (known as Kalam) made
from thin bamboo sticks (with diameters of 5–10 mm and lengths of 100–
150 mm) by simply peeling them on one side and making a nib-like pattern at
the end. The pen would then be dipped in ink for writing.
Fabric[edit]
Bamboo species Phyllostachys edulis is used extensively to produce fabric for
clothing.
Bambooworking[edit]
Bamboo was used by humans for various purposes at a very early time.
Categories of Bambooworking include:
Construction[edit]
Bamboo, like true wood, is a natural composite material with a high strength-
to-weight ratio useful for structures.[35]
In its natural form, bamboo as a construction material is traditionally
associated with the cultures of South Asia, East Asia, and the South Pacific, to
some extent in Central and South America, and by extension in the aesthetic
of Tiki culture. In China and India, bamboo was used to hold up simple
suspension bridges, either by making cables of split bamboo or twisting whole
culms of sufficiently pliable bamboo together. One such bridge in the area of
Qian-Xian is referenced in writings dating back to 960 AD and may have stood
since as far back as the third century BC, due largely to continuous
maintenance.[citation needed]
Bamboo has also long been used as scaffolding; the practice has been
banned in China for buildings over six stories, but is still in continuous use for
skyscrapers in Hong Kong.[36] In the Philippines, the nipa hut is a fairly typical
example of the most basic sort of housing where bamboo is used; the walls
are split and woven bamboo, and bamboo slats and poles may be used as its
support. In Japanese architecture, bamboo is used primarily as a
supplemental or decorative element in buildings such as fencing, fountains,
grates, and gutters, largely due to the ready abundance of quality timber.[37]
Textiles[edit]
Since the fibers of bamboo are very short (less than 3 mm (0.12 in)), they are
not usually transformed into yarn by a natural process. The usual process by
which textiles labeled as being made of bamboo are produced uses
only rayon made from the fibers with heavy employment of chemicals. To
accomplish this, the fibers are broken down with chemicals and extruded
through mechanical spinnerets; the chemicals include lye, carbon disulfide,
and strong acids.[38] Retailers have sold both end products as "bamboo fabric"
to cash in on bamboo's current ecofriendly cachet; however, the
Canadian Competition Bureau[39] and the US Federal Trade Commission,[40] as
of mid-2009, are cracking down on the practice of labeling bamboo rayon as
natural bamboo fabric. Under the guidelines of both agencies, these products
must be labeled as rayon with the optional qualifier "from bamboo".[40]
As a writing surface[edit]
Bamboo was in widespread use in early China as a medium for written
documents. The earliest surviving examples of such documents, written in ink
on string-bound bundles of bamboo strips (or "slips"), date from the 5th
century BC during the Warring States period. However, references in earlier
texts surviving on other media make it clear that some precursor of these
Warring States period bamboo slips was in use as early as the
late Shang period (from about 1250 BC).
Bamboo or wooden strips were used as the standard writing material during
the early Han dynasty, and excavated examples have been found in
abundance.[41] Subsequently, paper began to displace bamboo and wooden
strips from mainstream uses, and by the 4th century AD, bamboo slips had
been largely abandoned as a medium for writing in China.
Several paper industries are surviving on bamboo forests. Ballarpur
(Chandrapur, Maharstra) paper mills use bamboo for paper production. The
most common bamboo species used for paper are Dendrocalamus
asper and Bambusa blumeana. It is also possible to make dissolving
pulp from bamboo. The average fiber length is similar to hardwoods, but the
properties of bamboo pulp are closer to softwood pulps due to it having a very
broad fiber length distribution.[43] With the help of molecular tools, it is now
possible to distinguish the superior fiber-yielding species/varieties even at
juvenile stages of their growth, which can help in unadulterated merchandise
production.[44]
Weapons[edit]
Bamboo has often been used to construct weapons and is still incorporated in
several Asian martial arts.
• A bamboo staff, sometimes with one end sharpened, is used in
the Tamil martial art of silambam, a word derived from a term meaning "hill
bamboo".
• Staves used in the Indian martial art of gatka are commonly made from
bamboo, a material favoured for its light weight.
• Bamboo is sometimes used to craft the limbs of the longbow and recurve
bow used in traditional archery, and to make superior weapons
for bowhunting and target archery.
• The first gunpowder-based weapons, such as the fire lance, were made of
bamboo.
Definition
The Indus Valley Civilization was an ancient civilization located in what is
Pakistan and northwest India today, on the fertile flood plain of the Indus River and
its vicinity. Evidence of religious practices in this area date back approximately to
5500 BCE. Farming settlements began around 4000 BCE and around 3000 BCE there
appeared the first signs of urbanization. By 2600 BCE, dozens of towns
and cities had been established, and between 2500 and 2000 BCE the Indus
Valley Civilization was at its peak.
The Life of the Indus Valley Civilization
Two cities, in particular, have been excavated at the sites of Mohenjo-Daro on the
lower Indus, and at Harappa, further upstream. The evidence suggests they had a
highly developed city life; many houses had wells and bathrooms as well as an
elaborate underground drainage system. The social conditions of the citizens were
comparable to those in Sumeria and superior to the contemporary Babylonians and
Egyptians. These cities display a well-planned urbanization system.
THE EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THEY HAD A HIGHLY DEVELOPED CITY LIFE; MANY
HOUSES HAD WELLS AND BATHROOMS AS WELL AS AN ELABORATE
UNDERGROUND DRAINAGE SYSTEM .
There is evidence of some level of contact between the Indus Valley Civilization and
the Near East. Commercial, religious, and artistic connections have been recorded
in Sumerian documents, where the Indus valley people are referred to as
Meluhhaites and the Indus valley is called Meluhha. The following account has been
dated to about 2000 BCE: "The Meluhhaites, the men of the black land, bring
to Naram-Sin of Agade all kind of exotic wares." (Haywood, p. 76, The Curse of
Agade)
The Indus Civilization had a writing system which today still remains a mystery: all
attempts to decipher it have failed. This is one of the reasons why the Indus Valley
Civilization is one of the least known of the important early civilizations of antiquity.
Examples of this writing system have been found in pottery, amulets, carved stamp
seals, and even in weights and copper tablets.
Another point of debate is the nature of the relationship between these cities.
Whether they were independent city-states or part of a larger kingdom is not
entirely clear. Because the writing of the Indus people remains undeciphered and
neither sculptures of rulers nor depictions of battles and military campaigns have
been found, evidence pointing in either direction is not conclusive.

Decline of the Indus Valley Civilization
By 1800 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization saw the beginning of their decline:
Writing started to disappear, standardized weights and measures used for trade and
taxation purposes fell out of use, the connection with the Near East was interrupted,
and some cities were gradually abandoned. The reasons for this decline are not
entirely clear, but it is believed that the drying up of the Saraswati River, a process
which had begun around 1900 BCE, was the main cause. Other experts speak of a
great flood in the area. Either event would have had catastrophic effects on
agricultural activity, making the economy no longer sustainable and breaking the
civic order of the cities.
Around 1500 BCE, a large group of nomadic cattle-herders, the Aryans, migrated
into the region from central Asia. The Aryans crossed the Hindu Kush mountains
and came in contact with the Indus Valley Civilization. This was a large migration
and used to be seen as an invasion, which was thought to be the reason for the
collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization, but this hypothesis is not unanimously
accepted today.
Thus, the Indus Valley Civilization came to an end. Over the course of several
centuries, the Aryans gradually settled down and took up agriculture. The language
brought by the Aryans gained supremacy over the local languages: the origin of the
most widely spoken languages today in south Asia goes back to the Aryans, who
introduced the Indo-European languages into the Indian subcontinent. Other
features of modern Indian society, such as religious practices and caste division, can
also be traced back to the times of the Aryan migrations. Many pre-Aryan customs
still survive in India today. Evidence supporting this claim includes: the continuity
of pre-Aryan traditions; practices by many sectors of Indian society; and also the
possibility that some major gods of the Hindu pantheon actually originated during
the time of the Indus Valley Civilization and were kept "alive" by the original
inhabitants through the centuries.
Human migration, the permanent change of residence by an individual or
group; it excludes such movements as nomadism, migrant labour,
commuting, and tourism, all of which are transitory in nature.
A brief treatment of human migration follows. For further
discussion, see population: Migration.
Migrations fall into several broad categories. First, internal and international
migration may be distinguished. Within any country there are movements of
individuals and families from one area to another (for example, from rural
areas to the cities), and this is distinct from movements from one country to
another. Second, migration may be voluntary or forced. Most voluntary
migration, whether internal or external, is undertaken in search of better
economic opportunities or housing. Forced migrations usually involve
people who have been expelled by governments during war or other
political upheavals or who have been forcibly transported as slaves or
prisoners. Intermediate between these two categories are the voluntary
migrations of refugees fleeing war, famine, or natural disasters.
Human migrations within recorded history have transformed the entire
aspect of lands and continents and the racial, ethnic, and
linguistic composition of their populations. The map of Europe, for example,
is the product of several major early migrations involving the Germanic
peoples, the Slavs, and the Turks, among others. And in the course of 400
years—from the late 16th through the 20th century—the Americas,
Australia, Oceania, the northern half of Asia, and parts of Africa were
colonized by European migrants. The overseas migration of Europeans
during this period totaled about 60 million people.
The largest migration in history was the so-called Great Atlantic
Migration from Europe to North America, the first major wave of which
began in the 1840s with mass movements from Ireland and Germany. In
the 1880s a second and larger wave developed from eastern and southern
Europe; between 1880 and 1910 some 17 million Europeans entered
the United States. The total number of Europeans reaching the United
States amounted to 37 million between 1820 and 1980.
From 1801 to 1914 about 7.5 million migrants moved from European to
Asiatic Russia (i.e., Siberia), and between World Wars I and II about 6
million more, not counting innumerable deportees to Soviet labour camps,
voluntarily migrated there. Since World War II the largest voluntary
migrations have involved groups from developing countries moving to the
industrialized nations. Some 13 million migrants became permanent
residents of western Europe from the 1960s through the ’80s, and more
than 10 million permanent immigrants were admitted legally to the United
States in that same period, with illegal immigration adding several millions
more.
Slave migrations and mass expulsions also have been part of human
history for millennia. The largest slave migrations were probably those
compelled by European slave traders operating in Africa from the 16th to
the 19th century; perhaps 20 million slaves were consigned to the
Americas, though substantial numbers died in the appalling conditions of
the Atlantic passage. The largest mass expulsions have probably been
those imposed by Nazi Germany, which deported 7–8 million persons
during World War II (1939–45), and by the Soviet Union, which forcibly
expelled 9–10 million ethnic Germans from eastern Europe into Germany in
the closing year of the war and afterwards. Some 14 million people fled in
one direction or another during the partition of British India into India
and Pakistan in the late 1940s. The largest migrations in the second half of
the 20th century have consisted of refugees fleeing war, such as the
estimated 3–4 million people who fled Afghanistan in the 1980s.
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The dominant trend in internal migration during the 20th century has been
the movement from rural to urban areas. As a consequence, urban growth
since World War II has been very rapid in much of the world, particularly in
developing countries.