up avenues for more intrusive scientific research in archaeology to reconstruct the unwritten history of india and its glorious past agnihotri saidfood balls were used to perform rituals asithe discovery of food balls along with figurines of bulls and copper adze suggests that harappan people used these items to perform some kind of ritualsdirector excavations institute of archaeology at the archaeological survery of india asi new delhi sanjay manjul said after the scientific study we can say that this is the first evidence to show that harappan people performed some rituals on the banks of river saraswati now extinct though the nature of the ritual is not clear it could be akin to pind daan offering of homage and food to ancestorswhen we found the food balls at 4msr binjor it appeared to be a site where rituals were performed we found terracotta bulls painted pots bones and adze from there manjul said adding that excavations were carried out in three phases in 201415 201516 and 201617the food balls appeared like a lump of soil but its colour was a bit different so we picked it up and sent it to bsip for chemical analysis the study confirmed it was a food ball he added