This dataset is linked to the publication Suryanarayan et al. 'Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India', published open access in Journal of Archaeological Science. It contains: 1. A .csv file that contains all the GC-MS and GC-C-IRMS results, along with the details of the vessel samples. This includes contextual information such as sample ID, site name, type of settlement, trench number, context number, chronological details, details of climatic period (before, during or after 4.2 ka BP), vessel details (including type of sample, type of vessel and other vessel characteristics such as rim diameter, shape, etc.); GC-MS results: the lipid yield and concentration of every fatty acid present in the sample (from C12:0 to C28:0), the presence/absence of n-alkanes, alcohols, phthalates and sulphur, the values of C16:0/C18:0 ad finally, the GC-C-IRMS results which include the d13C values of C16:0 and C18:0 fatty acids as well as the D13C (d13C18:0-d13C16:0) values. 2. R Markdown file that contains the R code for the figures in the paper. 3. R Markdown file that contains the R code for the figures and statistics in the supplementary information. 4. PDFs of the R Markdown files and Supplementary Information-3, which contains images and details of all the vessels analysed.