The Bengal delta, where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra River join numerous tributaries to create constantly shifting zones of land and water, is a challenging but also fertile and productive environment for long-term human occupation. The permeable boundaries between land and water, formed by ever-changing watercourses across the level terrain, require flexible forms of land use, and a level of mobility not usually found in the context of densely populated and urban regions. Home to more than a hundred million people today, the world's largest delta and its inhabitants provided crucial support to numerous South Asian states and empires, from the Mauryans to the British. Both the challenges and rewards of this landscape for human settlement are mirrored in the challenges and rewards presented for archaeology. Shifting river courses and alluvial deposits make this a difficult landscape to survey. When, however, careful archaeological survey and excavation strategies are linked to remote sensing, geoarchaeology and the use of historical maps and documents, it is possible, as the authors of Living with floods show so clearly, to recover the history of this flood-adapted region.

A combination of regional synthesis and site report, this lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced monograph focuses on one part of the Bengal delta, the Ganga-Mahananda interfluve, a hydrologically active region where several seasons of survey and excavation have established a history of occupation from the seventh to the nineteenth centuries AD. In a region where the remains of more recent archaeological periods are usually studied solely for their art-historical possibilities, this project is especially exemplary. Not only have the authors managed to bring specialist analyses detailing the complex geology and hydrology of the region together with results from archaeological survey and excavation, but they have also carefully placed this information within the contexts both of past research and text-based histories. Living with floods is thus a model of what historical archaeology can and should be.

Building on a general historical and geomorphological introduction to the greater Bengal delta, the authors focus on the Tista-Mahananda and Ganga-Mahananda Basins, an area of more than 100km². This region's geomorphology is described in detail, and 59 archaeological sites previously mapped by Panja are located. Although these are reported to vary in form from artefact scatters with small mounds to larger nucleated sites surrounded by satellite settlements, regional-scale patterns of settlement and land use are not the primary focus here, and the discussion moves briskly on, zooming in still further to what the authors refer to as the micro-region of the Ganga-Mahananda interfluve. This area is criss-crossed with palaeochannels, oxbow lakes and wetlands; and historical maps and more recent satellite imagery reveal major changes in the locations of river courses over time. This area was surveyed, with nine sites briefly described.

A significant part of the volume is dedicated to reporting the results of excavation at the site of Balupur (also known as Pichhli), a 6km² settlement on the banks of the Kalanadi River. Surface documentation and mapping show numerous ponds and moats, as well as irrigation/drainage channels, but it is not clear when these were constructed. Beginning as a small rural settlement in the seventh century AD, the town had become a node in a regional trade network by the tenth century, as suggested by the evidence of a seal and several Chinese coins. After the thirteenth century and with the advent of the Bengal Sultanate centred at nearby Gaur, Balupur urbanised, with cowries and Chinese coins and celadon marking the site's continued importance for trade. Under the Mughals, Balupur lost its urban character, but continued to serve as a locus of industry, with the final colonial-era occupation characterised by the small houses of indigo cultivators. Although 36 trenches of varying sizes were excavated, and numerous structures, floors and hearths (including a brick floor and platform) were exposed, the authors characterise the excavations in primarily vertical terms, providing scant information on the settlement as a lived space in different periods. Given the fact that this has to be the best-excavated and best-documented historic-era site in India, this situation is rather frustrating, and one hopes to see more information of this kind published in the future.

The excavations also uncovered a number of burials, and the text and appendices detail aspects of human osteology, floral (phytoliths and apparently some pollen) and faunal analyses, artefacts and soil chemistry. Importantly, the site is also well dated, with both AMS and OSL dates. It is rare for archaeological sites in India to be so comprehensively studied and so well published, and the authors are to be commended for this. It is also a region of the world where sites of the historic era have not been considered to merit the same kinds of analyses as prehistoric sites, making this particular study yet more significant, but also meaning that for now there is little with which to compare the results. The next step will surely be to work towards the integration of the results and perspectives from projects such as this one with the well-developed historical literature on these same times and places. Historical debates about, for example, the condition of indigo farmers under colonial rule could be greatly enriched by consideration of the archaeological evidence left by those farmers. As with the delta environment itself, both the challenges and the rewards of such research are significant; Living with floods is a major milestone towards realising those rewards.