The Indus Valley Civilisation[1] (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze

Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE,
and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE.[2][a] Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia,
it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most
widespread, its sites spanning an area from much of Pakistan, to northeast Afghanistan, and
northwestern India.[3][b] The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which
flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that
once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and
eastern Pakistan.[2][4]
The term Harappan is sometimes applied to the Indus civilisation after its type site Harappa, the
first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British
India and is now Punjab, Pakistan.[5][c] The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-
daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey
of India in the British Raj in 1861.[6] There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan
and Late Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated
from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named after Mehrgarh,
in Balochistan, Pakistan.[7][8] Harappan civilisation is sometimes called Mature Harappan to
distinguish it from the earlier cultures.
The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses,
elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings,
and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy.[d] Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to
contain between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals,[10] and the civilisation may have contained
between one and five million individuals during its florescence.[11] A gradual drying of the region
during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial stimulus for its urbanisation. Eventually
it also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise and to disperse its
population to the east.[e]
Although over a thousand Mature Harappan sites have been reported and nearly a hundred
excavated,[f] there are five major urban centres:[12][g] Mohenjo-daro in the lower Indus Valley
(declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 as "Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro"),
Harappa in the western Punjab region, Ganeriwala in the Cholistan Desert, Dholavira in
western Gujarat (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021 as "Dholavira: A Harappan
City"), and Rakhigarhi in Haryana.[13][h] The Harappan language is not directly attested, and its
affiliations are uncertain, as the Indus script has remained undeciphered.[14] A relationship with
the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars.[15][16]

Etymology[edit]
The Indus civilisation is named after the Indus river system in whose alluvial plains the early sites
of the civilisation were identified and excavated.[17][i]
Following a tradition in archaeology, the civilisation is sometimes referred to as
the Harappan, after its type site, Harappa, the first site to be excavated in the 1920s; this is
notably true of usage employed by the Archaeological Survey of India after India's independence
in 1947.[18][j]
The term "Ghaggar-Hakra" figures prominently in modern labels applied to the Indus civilisation
on account of a good number of sites having been found along the Ghaggar-Hakra River in
northwest India and eastern Pakistan.[19] The terms "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" and "Sindhu-
Saraswati Civilisation" have also been employed in the literature after a posited identification of
the Ghaggar-Hakra with the river Sarasvati described in the early chapters of Rigveda, a
collection of hymns in archaic Sanskrit composed in the second-millennium BCE.[20][21]
Recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, described in the Rigveda as a
snow-fed river, the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers, which
became seasonal around the time that the civilisation diminished, approximately 4,000 years
ago.[4][k]
Extent[edit]

Major sites and extent of the Indus Valley Civilisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation was roughly contemporary with the other riverine civilisations of the
ancient world: Ancient Egypt along the Nile, Mesopotamia in the lands watered by
the Euphrates and the Tigris, and China in the drainage basin of the Yellow River and
the Yangtze. By the time of its mature phase, the civilisation had spread over an area larger than
the others, which included a core of 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) up the alluvial plain of the Indus
and its tributaries. In addition, there was a region with disparate flora, fauna, and habitats, up to
ten times as large, which had been shaped culturally and economically by the Indus.[22][l]
Around 6500 BCE, agriculture emerged in Balochistan, on the margins of the Indus alluvium.[23][m]
[24][n]
In the following millennia, settled life made inroads into the Indus plains, setting the stage for
the growth of rural and urban settlements.[25][o] The more organized sedentary life, in turn, led to a
net increase in the birth rate.[23][p] The large urban centres of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very
likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and during the civilisation's
florescence, the population of the subcontinent grew to between 4–6 million people.[23][q] During
this period the death rate increased, as the close living conditions of humans and domesticated
animals led to an increase in contagious diseases.[24][r] According to one estimate, the population
of the Indus civilisation at its peak may have been between one and five million.[26][s]
During its height the civilisation extended from Balochistan in the west to western Uttar
Pradesh in the east, from northeastern Afganistan in the north to Gujarat state in the south.[20] The
largest number of sites are in the Punjab region, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states,[20] Sindh, and Balochistan.[20] Coastal settlements extended
from Sutkagan Dor[27] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal[28] in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site has been
found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in Afghanistan which is the northernmost site of the Indus
Valley Civilisation,[29] in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan,[30] at Manda, Jammu on
the Beas River near Jammu,[31] and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km (17 mi) from
Delhi.[32] The southernmost site of the Indus Valley Civilisation is Daimabad in Maharashtra. Indus
Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient seacoast,[33] for
example, Balakot (Kot Bala),[34] and on islands, for example, Dholavira.[35]

Discovery and history of excavation[edit]

 Alexander Cunningham, the first director general of
the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), interpreted a Harappan stamp seal in 1875.

R. D. Banerji, an officer of the ASI, visited Mohenjo-daro in

1919–1920, and again in 1922–1923, postulating the site's far-off antiquity.

John Marshall, the director-general of the ASI from 1902 to 1928,

who oversaw the excavations in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, shown in a 1906 photograph
"Three other scholars whose names I cannot pass over in silence, are the late Mr. R. D. Banerji, to whom belongs the credit
of having discovered, if not Mohenjo-daro itself, at any rate its high antiquity, and his immediate successors in the task of
excavation, Messrs. M.S. Vats and K.N. Dikshit. ... no one probably except myself can fully appreciate the difficulties and
hardships which they had to face in the three first seasons at Mohenjo-daro"
— From, John Marshall (ed), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, London: Arthur Probsthain, 1931.[36]

The first modern accounts of the ruins of the Indus civilisation are those of Charles Masson, a
deserter from the East India Company's army.[37] In 1829, Masson traveled through the princely
state of Punjab, gathering useful intelligence for the Company in return for a promise of
clemency.[37] An aspect of this arrangement was the additional requirement to hand over to the
Company any historical artifacts acquired during his travels. Masson, who had versed himself in
the classics, especially in the military campaigns of Alexander the Great, chose for his
wanderings some of the same towns that had featured in Alexander's campaigns, and whose
archaeological sites had been noted by the campaign's chroniclers.[37] Masson's major
archaeological discovery in the Punjab was Harappa, a metropolis of the Indus civilisation in the
valley of Indus's tributary, the Ravi river. Masson made copious notes and illustrations of
Harappa's rich historical artifacts, many lying half-buried. In 1842, Masson included his
observations of Harappa in the book Narrative of Various Journeys in Baluchistan, Afghanistan,
and the Punjab. He dated the Harappa ruins to a period of recorded history, erroneously
mistaking it to have been described earlier during Alexander's campaign.[37] Masson was
impressed by the site's extraordinary size and by several large mounds formed from long-
existing erosion.[37][t]
Two years later, the Company contracted Alexander Burnes to sail up the Indus to assess the
feasibility of water travel for its army.[37] Burnes, who also stopped in Harappa, noted the baked
bricks employed in the site's ancient masonry, but noted also the haphazard plundering of these
bricks by the local population.[37]
Despite these reports, Harappa was raided even more perilously for its bricks after the British
annexation of the Punjab in 1848–49. A considerable number were carted away as track
ballast for the railway lines being laid in the Punjab.[39] Nearly 160 km (100 mi) of railway track
between Multan and Lahore, laid in the mid-1850s, was supported by Harappan bricks.[39]
In 1861, three years after the dissolution of the East India Company and the establishment
of Crown rule in India, archaeology on the subcontinent became more formally organised with
the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).[40] Alexander Cunningham, the Survey's
first director-general, who had visited Harappa in 1853 and had noted the imposing brick walls,
visited again to carry out a survey, but this time of a site whose entire upper layer had been
stripped in the interim.[40][41] Although his original goal of demonstrating Harappa to be a lost
Buddhist city mentioned in the seventh century CE travels of the Chinese visitor, Xuanzang,
proved elusive,[41] Cunningham did publish his findings in 1875.[42] For the first time, he interpreted
a Harappan stamp seal, with its unknown script, which he concluded to be of an origin foreign to
India.[42][43]
Archaeological work in Harappa thereafter lagged until a new viceroy of India, Lord Curzon,
pushed through the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act 1904, and appointed John Marshall to
lead the ASI.[44] Several years later, Hiranand Sastri, who had been assigned by Marshall to
survey Harappa, reported it to be of non-Buddhist origin, and by implication more ancient.
[44]
Expropriating Harappa for the ASI under the Act, Marshall directed ASI archaeologist Daya
Ram Sahni to excavate the site's two mounds.[44]
Farther south, along the main stem of the Indus in Sind province, the largely undisturbed site
of Mohenjo-daro had attracted notice.[44] Marshall deputed a succession of ASI officers to survey
the site. These included D. R. Bhandarkar (1911), R. D. Banerji (1919, 1922–1923), and M. S.
Vats (1924).[45] In 1923, on his second visit to Mohenjo-daro, Baneriji wrote to Marshall about the
site, postulating an origin in "remote antiquity", and noting a congruence of some of its artifacts
with those of Harappa.[46] Later in 1923, Vats, also in correspondence with Marshall, noted the
same more specifically about the seals and the script found at both sites.[46] On the weight of
these opinions, Marshall ordered crucial data from the two sites to be brought to one location and
invited Banerji and Sahni to a joint discussion.[47] By 1924, Marshall had become convinced of the
significance of the finds, and on 24 September 1924, made a tentative but conspicuous public
intimation in the Illustrated London News:[17]
"Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given
to Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae, or to Stein in the deserts of Turkestan, to light upon the
remains of a long forgotten civilisation. It looks, however, at this moment, as if we were on the
threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus."
In the next issue, a week later, the British Assyriologist Archibald Sayce was able to point to very
similar seals found in Bronze Age levels in Mesopotamia and Iran, giving the first strong
indication of their date; confirmations from other archaeologists followed.[48] Systematic
excavations began in Mohenjo-daro in 1924–25 with that of K. N. Dikshit, continuing with those of
H. Hargreaves (1925–1926), and Ernest J. H. Mackay (1927–1931).[45] By 1931, much of
Mohenjo-daro had been excavated, but occasional excavations continued, such as the one led
by Mortimer Wheeler, a new director-general of the ASI appointed in 1944, and including Ahmad
Hasan Dani.[49]
After the partition of India in 1947, when most excavated sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation lay
in territory awarded to Pakistan, the Archaeological Survey of India, its area of authority reduced,
carried out large numbers of surveys and excavations along the Ghaggar-Hakra system in India.
[50][u]
Some speculated that the Ghaggar-Hakra system might yield more sites than the Indus river
basin.[51] According to archaeologist Ratnagar, many Ghaggar-Hakra sites in India and Indus
Valley sites in Pakistan are actually those of local cultures; some sites display contact with
Harappan civilisation, but only a few are fully developed Harappan ones.[52] As of 1977, about
90% of the Indus script seals and inscribed objects discovered were found at sites in Pakistan
along the Indus river, while other sites accounts only for the remaining 10%.[v][53][54] By 2002,
over 1,000 Mature Harappan cities and settlements had been reported, of which just under a
hundred had been excavated,[f] mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra
rivers and their tributaries; however, there are only five major urban sites: Harappa, Mohenjo-
daro, Dholavira, Ganeriwala and Rakhigarhi.[55] As of 2008, about 616 sites have been reported in
India,[20] whereas 406 sites have been reported in Pakistan.[20]
Unlike India, in which after 1947, the ASI attempted to "Indianise" archaeological work in keeping
with the new nation's goals of national unity and historical continuity, in Pakistan the national
imperative was the promotion of Islamic heritage, and consequently archaeological work on early
sites was left to foreign archaeologists.[56] After the partition, Mortimer Wheeler, the Director of
ASI from 1944, oversaw the establishment of archaeological institutions in Pakistan, later joining
a UNESCO effort tasked to conserve the site at Mohenjo-daro.[57] Other international efforts at
Mohenjo-daro and Harappa have included the German Aachen Research Project Mohenjo-daro,
the Italian Mission to Mohenjo-daro, and the US Harappa Archaeological Research Project
(HARP) founded by George F. Dales.[58] Following a chance flash flood which exposed a portion
of an archaeological site at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, excavations were carried
out in Mehrgarh by French archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige and his team in the early 1970s.
[59]

Chronology[edit]
Main article: Periodisation of the Indus Valley Civilisation

History of South Asia

show

Outline

show
 National histories

show

Regional histories

show

Specialised histories

 v
 t
 e

The cities of the ancient Indus had "social hierarchies, their writing system, their large planned
cities and their long-distance trade [which] mark them to archaeologists as a full-fledged
'civilisation.'"[60] The mature phase of the Harappan civilisation lasted from c. 2600–1900 BCE.
With the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures – Early Harappan and Late
Harappan, respectively – the entire Indus Valley Civilisation may be taken to have lasted from
the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. It is part of the Indus Valley Tradition, which also includes the
pre-Harappan occupation of Mehrgarh, the earliest farming site of the Indus Valley.[8][61]
Several periodisations are employed for the IVC.[8][61] The most commonly used classifies the
Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase.[62] An alternative approach
by Shaffer divides the broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early
Food Producing Era", and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which
correspond roughly with the Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases.[7][63]

Date
s Mehrgarh Harappan Post-Harappan
Main phase Era
(BCE phases phases phases
)

Mehrgarh
7000 I and Bhirran
Early Food
– Pre-Harappan a
Producing Era
5500 (aceramic
Neolithic)

Pre- Mehrgarh II– Regionalisatio

5500
Harappan/ VI n Era
– c. 4000–
Early (ceramic
3300 2500/2300
Harappan[64] Neolithic)
(Shaffer)[65]
c. 5000–3200
(Coningham &
3300 Early Harappan 1 Young)[66]
– Harappan[64] (Ravi
2800 c. 3300–2800 Phase; Hakr
 a Ware)

(Mughal)[67][64][68]
c. 5000–2800 Harappan 2
2800 (Kenoyer)[64]
(Kot Diji
– Mehrgarh VII
Phase,
2600
Nausharo I)

Harappan
2600
3A
–
(Nausharo
2450
II)

Mature
2450 Harappan
Harappan Integration Era
– (Indus Valley
3B
2200 Civilisation)

2200
Harappan
–
3C
1900

1900
– Harappan 4
1700
Cemetery H[69]
Localisation
Late Harappan Ochre Coloured
Era
Pottery[69]
1700
– Harappan 5
1300

Regionalisatio
Painted Grey n
1300 Ware (1200–600) c. 1200–300
(Kenoyer)[64]
–600 Vedic period (c.
c. 1500[70]–600
1500–500) (Coningham &
Young)[71]
Post-
Harappan
Iron Age India
Northern Black
Polished Ware (Iron
600– Age) (700–200)
Integration[71]
300 Second
urbanisation (c.
500–200)

Pre-Harappan era: Mehrgarh[edit]

Main article: Mehrgarh
See also: Neolithic Revolution
Mehrgarh is a Neolithic (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE) mountain site in the Balochistan province
of Pakistan,[72] which gave new insights on the emergence of the Indus Valley Civilisation.[60]
[w]
Mehrgarh is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia.[73]
[74]
Mehrgarh was influenced by the Near Eastern Neolithic,[75] with similarities between
"domesticated wheat varieties, early phases of farming, pottery, other archaeological artefacts,
some domesticated plants and herd animals."[76][x]
Jean-Francois Jarrige argues for an independent origin of Mehrgarh. Jarrige notes "the
assumption that farming economy was introduced full-fledged from Near-East to South Asia,"[77][x][y]
[z]
and the similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus
valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. But given the originality
of Mehrgarh, Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background, and is not a
"'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East".[77]
Lukacs and Hemphill suggest an initial local development of Mehrgarh, with a continuity in
cultural development but a change in population. According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while there
is a strong continuity between the neolithic and chalcolithic (Copper Age) cultures of Mehrgarh,
dental evidence shows that the chalcolithic population did not descend from the neolithic
population of Mehrgarh,[91] which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow."[91][aa] Mascarenhas et al.
(2015) note that "new, possibly West Asian, body types are reported from the graves of
Mehrgarh beginning in the Togau phase (3800 BCE)."[92]
Gallego Romero et al. (2011) state that their research on lactose tolerance in India suggests that
"the west Eurasian genetic contribution identified by Reich et al. (2009) principally reflects gene
flow from Iran and the Middle East."[93] They further note that "[t]he earliest evidence of cattle
herding in south Asia comes from the Indus River Valley site of Mehrgarh and is dated to
7,000 YBP."[93][ab]

Early Harappan[edit]

Early Harappan Period, c. 3300–2600 BCETerracotta boat

in the shape of a bull, and female figurines. Kot Diji period (c. 2800–2600 BC).
The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River, lasted from c. 3300 BCE
until 2800 BCE. It started when farmers from the mountains gradually moved between their
mountain homes and the lowland river valleys,[95] and is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in
the Ghaggar-Hakra River Valley to the west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase (2800–2600 BCE,
Harappan 2), named after a site in northern Sindh, Pakistan, near Mohenjo-daro. The earliest
examples of the Indus script date to the 3rd millennium BCE.[96][97]
The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri in
Pakistan.[98] Kot Diji represents the phase leading up to Mature Harappan, with the citadel
representing centralised authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Another town of this
stage was found at Kalibangan in India on the Hakra River.[99]
Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw
materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. By this time, villagers had
domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, as well as
animals, including the water buffalo. Early Harappan communities turned to large urban centres
by 2600 BCE, from where the mature Harappan phase started. The latest research shows that
Indus Valley people migrated from villages to cities.[100][101]
The final stages of the Early Harappan period are characterised by the building of large walled
settlements, the expansion of trade networks, and the increasing integration of regional
communities into a "relatively uniform" material culture in terms of pottery styles, ornaments,
and stamp seals with Indus script, leading into the transition to the Mature Harappan phase.[102]

Mature Harappan[edit]

Mature Harappan Period, c. 2600–

1900 BCE
Mature Harappan

View of Granary and Great Hall on Mound F in Harappa

Archaeological remains of washroom drainage system at Lothal

Dholavira in Gujarat, India, is one of the largest cities of Indus Valley civilisation, with stepwell steps to
reach the water level in artificially constructed reservoirs.[103]
According to Giosan et al. (2012), the slow southward migration of the monsoons across Asia
initially allowed the Indus Valley villages to develop by taming the floods of the Indus and its
tributaries. Flood-supported farming led to large agricultural surpluses, which in turn supported
the development of cities. The IVC residents did not develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly
on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer floods.[4] Brooke further notes that the
development of advanced cities coincides with a reduction in rainfall, which may have triggered a
reorganisation into larger urban centres.[104][e]
According to J.G. Shaffer and D.A. Lichtenstein,[105] the Mature Harappan civilisation was "a
fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, and Kot Diji traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley
on the borders of India and Pakistan".[106]
Also, according to a more recent summary by Maisels (2003), "The Harappan oecumene formed
from a Kot Dijian/Amri-Nal synthesis". He also says that, in the development of complexity, the
site of Mohenjo-daro has priority, along with the Hakra-Ghaggar cluster of sites, "where Hakra
wares actually precede the Kot Diji related material". He sees these areas as "catalytic in
producing the fusion from Hakra, Kot Dijian and Amri-Nal cultural elements that resulted in the
gestalt we recognize as Early Harappan (Early Indus)."[107]
By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities turned into large urban centres. Such urban
centres include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan,
and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern-day India.[108] In total, more
than 1,000 settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-
Hakra Rivers and their tributaries.[f]
Cities[edit]
Main article: Harappan architecture
A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley
Civilisation, making them the first urban centre in the region. The quality of municipal town
planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which
placed a high priority on hygiene, or, alternatively, accessibility to the means of religious ritual.[109]
As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi, this urban
plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems. Within the city, individual homes
or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside
for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses
opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. The housebuilding in some villages in the
region still resembles in some respects the housebuilding of the Harappans.[ac]
The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed and used in cities
throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites
in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India today.
The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their dockyards, granaries,
warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls of Indus cities most likely
protected the Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military conflicts.[111]
The purpose of the citadel remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilisation's
contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, no large monumental structures were built.
There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or temples.[112] Some structures are thought to have
been granaries. Found at one city is an enormous well-built bath (the "Great Bath"), which may
have been a public bath. Although the citadels were walled, it is far from clear that these
structures were defensive.
Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the
same occupation in well-defined neighbourhoods. Materials from distant regions were used in the
cities for constructing seals, beads and other objects. Among the artefacts discovered were
beautiful glazed faïence beads. Steatite seals have images of animals, people (perhaps gods),
and other types of inscriptions, including the yet un-deciphered writing system of the Indus Valley
Civilisation. Some of the seals were used to stamp clay on trade goods.
Although some houses were larger than others, Indus civilisation cities were remarkable for their
apparent, if relative, egalitarianism. All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities.
This gives the impression of a society with relatively low wealth concentration.[113]
Authority and governance[edit]
Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for a centre of power or for depictions of
people in power in Harappan society. But, there are indications of complex decisions being taken
and implemented. For instance, the majority of the cities were constructed in a highly uniform
and well-planned grid pattern, suggesting they were planned by a central authority; extraordinary
uniformity of Harappan artefacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks;[114] presence of
public facilities and monumental architecture;[115] heterogeneity in the mortuary symbolism and in
grave goods (items included in burials).[116]
These are some major theories:[citation needed]

 There was a single state, given the similarity in artefacts, the evidence for planned
settlements, the standardised ratio of brick size, and the establishment of settlements
near sources of raw material.
 There was no single ruler but several cities like Mohenjo-daro had a separate ruler,
Harappa another, and so forth.
Metallurgy[edit]
Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead,
and tin.[citation needed]
A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably used for testing
the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India).[106]
Metrology[edit]

Harappan weights found in the Indus Valley, (National

Museum, New Delhi) [117]

Further information: Indian mathematics § Prehistory

The people of the Indus civilisation achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and
time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures.
[dubious – discuss]
A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus
territories. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal in Gujarat,
was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age.
[citation needed]
Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical
purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights.[citation needed]
These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50,
100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams, similar to the
English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with
the units of 0.871 . However, as in other cultures, actual weights were not uniform throughout the
area. The weights and measures later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the
same as those used in Lothal.[118]
Arts and crafts[edit]
See also: Pottery in the Indian subcontinent
Many Indus Valley seals and items in pottery and terracotta have been found, along with a very
few stone sculptures and some gold jewellery and bronze vessels. Some anatomically detailed
figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites, the former
probably mostly toys.[119] The Harappans also made various toys and games, among them
cubical dice (with one to six holes on the faces), which were found in sites like Mohenjo-daro.[120]
The terracotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. The animal depicted on a
majority of seals at sites of the mature period has not been clearly identified. Part bull, part zebra,
with a majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to
substantiate claims that the image had religious or cultic significance, but the prevalence of the
image raises the question of whether or not the animals in images of the IVC are religious
symbols.[121]
Many crafts including, "shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite bead making"
were practised and the pieces were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other
ornaments from all phases of Harappan culture. Some of these crafts are still practised in the
subcontinent today.[115] Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of combs (kakai), the use
of collyrium and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that were found in Harappan contexts still
have similar counterparts in modern India.[122] Terracotta female figurines were found (c. 2800–
2600 BCE) which had red colour applied to the "manga" (line of partition of the hair).[122]
Archeological remains from 2000 to 3000 BC have been found from the city of Lothal of pieces
on a board that resemble chess.[123]
The finds from Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the Lahore Museum, but later moved to
the ASI headquarters at New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial Museum" was being planned
for the new capital of the British Raj, in which at least a selection would be displayed. It became
apparent that Indian independence was approaching, but the Partition of India was not
anticipated until late in the process. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the
Mohenjo-daro pieces excavated on their territory, but the Indian authorities refused. Eventually
an agreement was reached, whereby the finds, totalling some 12,000 objects (most sherds of
pottery), were split equally between the countries; in some cases this was taken very literally,
with some necklaces and girdles having their beads separated into two piles. In the case of the
"two most celebrated sculpted figures", Pakistan asked for and received the so-called Priest-
King figure, while India retained the much smaller Dancing Girl.[124]
Though written considerably later, the arts treatise Natya Shastra (c. 200 BCE – 200 CE)
classifies musical instruments into four groups based on their means of acoustical production—
strings, membranes, solid materials and air—and it is probable that such instruments had existed
since the IVC.[125] Archeological evidence indicates the use of simple rattles and vessel flutes,
while iconographical evidence suggests early harps and drums were also used.
[126]
An ideogram in the IVC contains the earliest known depiction of an arched harp, dated
sometime before 1800 BCE.[127]

Ceremonial vessel; 2600–2450 BC; terracotta with black paint; 49.53 × 25.4 cm; Los Angeles
County Museum of Art (US)
 

Cubical weights, standardised throughout the Indus cultural zone; 2600–1900 BC;
chert; British Museum (London)

Mohenjo-daro beads; 2600–1900 BC; carnelian and terracotta; British Museum

Ram-headed bird mounted on wheels, probably a toy; 2600–1900 BC; terracotta; Guimet
Museum (Paris)
Human statuettes[edit]
Further information: Dancing Girl (sculpture)
A handful of realistic statuettes have been found at IVC sites, of which much the most famous is
the lost-wax casting bronze statuette of a slender-limbed Dancing Girl adorned with bangles,
found in Mohenjo-daro. Two other realistic incomplete statuettes have been found in Harappa in
proper stratified excavations, which display near-Classical treatment of the human shape:
the statuette of a dancer who seems to be male, and the Hapappa Torso, a red jasper male
torso, both now in the Delhi National Museum. Sir John Marshall reacted with surprise when he
saw these two statuettes from Harappa:[128]
When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to
completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture. Modelling such as this was
unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that
some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels
some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged ... Now, in these statuettes, it
is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-
important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off
age on the banks of the Indus.[128]
These statuettes remain controversial, due to their advanced style in representing the human
body. Regarding the red jasper torso, the discoverer, Vats, claims a Harappan date, but Marshall
considered this statuette is probably historical, dating to the Gupta period, comparing it to the
much later Lohanipur torso.[129] A second rather similar grey stone torso of a dancing male was
also found about 150 meters away in a secure Mature Harappan stratum. Overall,
anthropologist Gregory Possehl tends to consider that these statuettes probably form the
pinnacle of Indus art during the Mature Harappan period.[130]

Reclining mouflon; 2600–1900 BC; marble; length: 28 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New
York City)

The Priest-King; 2400–1900 BC; low fired steatite; height: 17.5 cm; National Museum of
Pakistan (Karachi)

Male dancing torso; 2400–1900 BC; limestone; height: 9.9 cm; National Museum (New Delhi)
 

The Dancing Girl; 2400–1900 BC; bronze; height: 10.8 cm; National Museum (New Delhi)
Seals[edit]
Main article: Indus script

Stamp seals and (right) impressions, some of them with Indus

script; probably made of steatite; British Museum (London)
Thousands of steatite seals have been recovered, and their physical character is fairly
consistent. In size they range from squares of side 2 to 4 cm (3⁄4 to 1+1⁄2 in). In most cases they
have a pierced boss at the back to accommodate a cord for handling or for use as personal
adornment. In addition a large number of sealings have survived, of which only a few can be
matched to the seals. The great majority of examples of the Indus script are short groups of signs
on seals.[131]
Seals have been found at Mohenjo-daro depicting a figure standing on its head, and another, on
the Pashupati seal, sitting cross-legged in what some[who?] call a yoga-like pose (see image, the
so-called Pashupati, below). This figure has been variously identified. Sir John Marshall identified
a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva.[132]
A human deity with the horns, hooves and tail of a bull also appears in the seals, in particular in a
fighting scene with a horned tiger-like beast. This deity has been compared to the Mesopotamian
bull-man Enkidu.[133][134][135] Several seals also show a man fighting two lions or tigers, a "Master of
Animals" motif common to civilisations in Western and South Asia.[135][136]

Seal; 3000–1500 BC; baked steatite; 2 × 2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
  Stamp seal and modern impression: unicorn and incense burner (?); 2600–1900 BC; burnt
steatite; 3.8 × 3.8 × 1 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seal with two-horned bull and inscription; 2010 BC; steatite; overall: 3.2 x 3.2 cm; Cleveland
Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, US)

Seal with unicorn and inscription; 2010 BC; steatite; overall: 3.5 x 3.6 cm; Cleveland Museum
of Art

Seal painted on the first page of Constitution of India

Trade and transportation[edit]
Further information: Lothal, Meluhha, and Shortugai
 Archaeological discoveries suggest that trade routes
between Mesopotamia and the Indus were active during the 3rd millennium BCE, leading to

the development of Indus–Mesopotamia relations. [137]

Boat
with direction-finding birds to find land. Model of Mohenjo-daro tablet, 2500–1750 BCE.
[138][139]

(National Museum, New Delhi). Flat-bottomed river row-boats appear in two Indus seals,
[140][141]

but their seaworthiness is debatable. [142]

The Indus Valley civilisation may have had bullock carts identical to those seen throughout South
Asia today, as well as boats. Most of these boats were probably small, flat-bottomed craft,
perhaps driven by sail, similar to those one can see on the Indus River today;. An extensive
canal network, used for irrigation, has however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort.[143]
During 4300–3200 BCE of the chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus Valley Civilisation area
shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran which suggest
considerable mobility and trade. During the Early Harappan period (about 3200–2600 BCE),
similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments, etc. document intensive caravan trade
with Central Asia and the Iranian plateau.[144]
Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilisation artefacts, the trade networks economically
integrated a huge area, including portions of Afghanistan, the coastal regions
of Persia connected by the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea, northern and western India,
and Mesopotamia, leading to the development of Indus-Mesopotamia relations. Studies of tooth
enamel from individuals buried at Harappa suggest that some residents had migrated to the city
from beyond the Indus Valley.[145] Ancient DNA studies of graves at Bronze Age sites at Gonur
Depe, Turkmenistan, and Shahr-e Sukhteh, Iran, have identified 11 individuals of South Asian
descent, who are presumed to be of mature Indus Valley origin.[146]
There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and
Mesopotamian civilisations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being
handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain, Eastern
Arabia and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf).[147] Such long-distance sea trade became feasible
with the development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a
sail of woven rushes or cloth.[148]
However, the evidence of sea-borne trade involving the Harappan civilisation is not firm. In their
book Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan archaeologists Bridget Allchin and Raymond
Allchin write:
... (p. 173) the settlement at Lothal ... along the east side was a brick basin. It is claimed by its
excavator to have been a dockyard, connected by channels to a neighbouring estuary. ... On its
edge the excavator discovered several heavily-pierced stones, similar to modern anchor stones
employed by traditional seafaring communities of Western India. This interpretation, however,
has been challenged, and indeed the published levels of the basin and its entrance relative to the
modern sea level seem to argue against it. Leshnik has cogently suggested that it was a tank for
the reception of sweet water, channelled from higher ground inland to an area where the local
water supplies were anciently, as still today, saline. We regard either interpretation as still
unproven, but favour the latter. ... (p. 188–189) The discussion of trade focuses attention upon
methods of transport. Several representations of ships are found on seals and graffiti at Harappa,
Mohenjo-daro (Figs. 7.15–7.16], etc, and a terracotta model of a ship, with a stick impressed
socket for the mast and eyeholes for fixing rigging comes from Lothal. We have already seen
above that the great brick tank, interpreted by Rao as a dock at Lothal, cannot yet be certainly
identified. The evidence of sea trade and contact during the Harappan period is largely
circumstantial, or derived from inferences from the Mesopotamian texts, as detailed above.
(Figure 7. 15 had caption: Mohenjo-daro: representation of ship on a stone seal (length 4.3 cm)
(after Mackay). Figure 7.16 Mohenjo-daro: representation of ship on terracotta amulet (length 4.5
cm) after Dales)
Daniel T. Potts writes:
It is generally assumed that most trade between the Indus Valley (ancient Meluhha?) and
western neighbors proceeded up the Persian Gulf rather than overland. Although there is no
incontrovertible proof that this was indeed the case, the distribution of Indus-type artifacts on the
Oman peninsula, on Bahrain and in southern Mesopotamia makes it plausible that a series of
maritime stages linked the Indus Valley and the Gulf region. If this is accepted, then the presence
of etched carnelian beads, a Harappan-style cubical stone weight, and a Harappan-style cylinder
seal at Susa (Amiet 1986a, Figs. 92-94) may be evidence of maritime trade between Susa and
the Indus Valley in the late 3rd millennium BCE. On the other hand, given that similar finds,
particularly etched carnelian beads, are attested at landlocked sites including Tepe Hissar
(Tappe Heṣār), Shah Tepe (Šāh-Tappe), Kalleh Nisar (Kalla Nisār), Jalalabad (Jalālābād), Marlik
(Mārlik) and Tepe Yahya (Tappe Yaḥyā) (Possehl 1996, pp. 153-54), other mechanisms,
including overland traffic by peddlers or caravans, may account for their presence at Susa.[149]
In the 1980s, important archaeological discoveries were made at Ras al-Jinz (Oman),
demonstrating maritime Indus Valley connections with the Arabian Peninsula.[148][150][151]
Dennys Frenez recently regards that:
Indus-type and Indus-related artifacts were found over a large and differentiated ecumene,
encompassing Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau, Mesopotamia and the northern Levant, the
Persian Gulf, and the Oman Peninsula. The discovery of Indus trade tools (seals, weights, and
containers) across the entire Middle Asia, complemented by information from Mesopotamian
cuneiform texts, shows that entrepreneurs from the Indus Valley regularly ventured into these
regions to transact with the local socioeconomic and political entities. However, Indus artifacts
were also exchanged beyond this core region, eventually reaching as far [as] the Nile River
valley, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. On the contrary, only a handful of exotic trade tools and
commodities have been found at sites in the Greater Indus Valley. The success of Indus trade in
Central and Western Asia did not only rely on the dynamic entrepreneurialism of Indus
merchants and the exotic commodities they offered. Specific products were proactively designed
and manufactured in the Indus Valley to fulfill the particular needs of foreign markets, and Indus
craftspeople moved beyond their native cultural sphere adapting their distinctive productions to
the taste of foreign elites or reworking indigenous models. The adoption of specific seals and
iconographies to regulate external trade activities suggests a conscious attempt at implementing
a coordinated supraregional marketing strategy[...][152]

Agriculture[edit]
According to Gangal et al. (2014), there is strong archeological and geographical evidence that
neolithic farming spread from the Near East into north-west India, but there is also "good
evidence for the local domestication of barley and the zebu cattle at Mehrgarh."[75][ad]
According to Jean-Francois Jarrige, farming had an independent local origin at Mehrgarh, which
he argues is not merely a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East", despite
similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus valley
which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites.[77] Archaeologist Jim G.
Shaffer writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous
South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric
urbanisation and complex social organisation in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not
isolated, cultural developments".[153]
Jarrige notes that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and barley,[154] while Shaffer
and Liechtenstein note that the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop
derived from two-row barley.[155] Gangal agrees that "Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh
include more than 90% barley," noting that "there is good evidence for the local domestication of
barley." Yet, Gangal also notes that the crop also included "a small amount of wheat," which "are
suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is
limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey."[75][ae]
The cattle that are often portrayed on Indus seals are humped Indian aurochs (Bos primigenius
namadicus), which are similar to Zebu cattle. Zebu cattle is still common in India, and in Africa. It
is different from the European cattle (Bos primigenius taurus), and are believed to have been
independently domesticated on the Indian subcontinent, probably in the Baluchistan region of
Pakistan.[156][75][ad]
Research by J. Bates et al. (2016) confirms that Indus populations were the earliest people to
use complex multi-cropping strategies across both seasons, growing foods during summer (rice,
millets and beans) and winter (wheat, barley and pulses), which required different watering
regimes.[157] Bates et al. (2016) also found evidence for an entirely separate domestication
process of rice in ancient South Asia, based around the wild species Oryza nivara. This led to the
local development of a mix of "wetland" and "dryland" agriculture of local Oryza sativa indica rice
agriculture, before the truly "wetland" rice Oryza sativa japonica arrived around 2000 BCE.[158]
Food[edit]
According to archeological finds, the Indus Valley civilisation had a diet dominated by meats of
animals such as cattle, buffalo, goat, pig and chicken.[159][160] Remnants of dairy products were also
discovered. According to Akshyeta Suryanarayan et al.,[af] available evidence indicates culinary
practices to be common over the region; food-constituents were dairy products (in low
proportion), ruminant carcass meat, and either non-ruminant adipose fats, plants, or mixtures of
these products.[161] The dietary pattern remained same throughout the decline.[161]
Seven food-balls ("laddus") were found in intact form, along with two figurines of bulls and a
hand-held copper adze, during excavations in 2017 from western Rajasthan.[162] Dated to about
2600 BCE, they were likely composed of legumes, primarily mung, and cereals.[162] The authors
speculated the food-balls to be of a ritualistic significance, given the finds of bull
figurines, adze and a seal in immediate vicinity.[162][163]
Language[edit]
See also: Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit, Harappan language, and Origins of Dravidian peoples
It has often been suggested that the bearers of the IVC corresponded to proto-
Dravidians linguistically, the break-up of proto-Dravidian corresponding to the break-up of
the Late Harappan culture.[164] Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola concludes that the uniformity of the
Indus inscriptions precludes any possibility of widely different languages being used, and that an
early form of Dravidian language must have been the language of the Indus people.[165] Today,
the Dravidian language family is concentrated mostly in southern India and northern and
eastern Sri Lanka, but pockets of it still remain throughout the rest of India and Pakistan
(the Brahui language), which lends credence to the theory.
According to Heggarty and Renfrew, Dravidian languages may have spread into the Indian
subcontinent with the spread of farming.[166] According to David McAlpin, the Dravidian languages
were brought to India by immigration into India from Elam.[ag] In earlier publications, Renfrew also
stated that proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile
Crescent,[167][168][169][ah] but more recently Heggarty and Renfrew note that "a great deal remains to be
done in elucidating the prehistory of Dravidian." They also note that "McAlpin's analysis of the
language data, and thus his claims, remain far from orthodoxy."[166] Heggarty and Renfrew
conclude that several scenarios are compatible with the data, and that "the linguistic jury is still
very much out."[166][aj] In a 2021 study, Bahata Ansumali Mukhopadhyay presented a linguistic
analysis to posit a Proto-Dravidian presence in the ancient Indus area, using Dravidian root
words for tooth, toothbrush and elephant in various contemporary ancient civilisations.[174]
Possible writing system[edit]
Main article: Indus script

Ten Indus characters from the northern gate

of Dholavira, dubbed the Dholavira signboard
Between 400 and as many as 600 distinct Indus symbols[175] have been found on stamp seals,
small tablets, ceramic pots and more than a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that
apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira.
Typical Indus inscriptions are around five characters in length,[176] most of which (aside from the
Dholavira "signboard") are tiny; the longest on any single object (inscribed on a copper plate[177])
has a length of 34 symbols.
While the Indus Valley Civilisation is generally characterised as a literate society on the evidence
of these inscriptions, this description has been challenged by Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel (2004)
[178]
who argue that the Indus system did not encode language, but was instead similar to a variety
of non-linguistic sign systems used extensively in the Near East and other societies, to symbolise
families, clans, gods, and religious concepts. Others have claimed on occasion that the symbols
were exclusively used for economic transactions, but this claim leaves unexplained the
appearance of Indus symbols on many ritual objects, many of which were mass-produced
in moulds. No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions are known in any other early ancient
civilisations.[179]
In a 2009 study by P.N. Rao et al. published in Science, computer scientists, comparing the
pattern of symbols to various linguistic scripts and non-linguistic systems, including DNA and a
computer programming language, found that the Indus script's pattern is closer to that of spoken
words, supporting the hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language.[180][181]
Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel have disputed this finding, pointing out that Rao et al. did not actually
compare the Indus signs with "real-world non-linguistic systems" but rather with "two wholly
artificial systems invented by the authors, one consisting of 200,000 randomly ordered signs and
another of 200,000 fully ordered signs, that they spuriously claim represent the structures of all
real-world non-linguistic sign systems".[182] Farmer et al. have also demonstrated that a
comparison of a non-linguistic system like medieval heraldic signs with natural languages yields
results similar to those that Rao et al. obtained with Indus signs. They conclude that the method
used by Rao et al. cannot distinguish linguistic systems from non-linguistic ones.[183]
The messages on the seals have proved to be too short to be decoded by a computer. Each seal
has a distinctive combination of symbols and there are too few examples of each sequence to
provide a sufficient context. The symbols that accompany the images vary from seal to seal,
making it impossible to derive a meaning for the symbols from the images. There have,
nonetheless, been a number of interpretations offered for the meaning of the seals. These
interpretations have been marked by ambiguity and subjectivity.[183]: 69
Photos of many of the thousands of extant inscriptions are published in the Corpus of Indus
Seals and Inscriptions (1987, 1991, 2010), edited by Asko Parpola and his colleagues. The most
recent volume republished photos taken in the 1920s and 1930s of hundreds of lost or stolen
inscriptions, along with many discovered in the last few decades; formerly, researchers had to
supplement the materials in the Corpus by study of the tiny photos in the excavation reports of
Marshall (1931), MacKay (1938, 1943), Wheeler (1947), or reproductions in more recent
scattered sources.[citation needed]
Religion[edit]

The Pashupati seal, showing a seated figure surrounded by

animals Swastika seals of Indus Valley Civilisation

in British Museum
Main article: Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization
Further information: Prehistoric religion
The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley people has received considerable attention,
especially from the view of identifying precursors to deities and religious practices of Indian
religions that later developed in the area. However, due to the sparsity of evidence, which is
open to varying interpretations, and the fact that the Indus script remains undeciphered, the
conclusions are partly speculative and largely based on a retrospective view from a much later
Hindu perspective.[184]
Early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu interpretations of archaeological
evidence from the Harappan sites[185] was that of John Marshall, who in 1931 identified the
following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess;
deification or veneration of animals and plants; a symbolic representation of the phallus (linga)
and vulva (yoni); and, use of baths and water in religious practice. Marshall's interpretations have
been much debated, and sometimes disputed over the following decades.[186][187]
One Indus Valley seal shows a seated figure with a horned headdress, possibly tricephalic and
possibly ithyphallic, surrounded by animals. Marshall identified the figure as an early form of the
Hindu god Shiva (or Rudra), who is associated with asceticism, yoga, and linga; regarded as
a lord of animals, and often depicted as having three eyes. The seal has hence come to be
known as the Pashupati Seal, after Pashupati (lord of all animals), an epithet of Shiva.[186][188] While
Marshall's work has earned some support, many critics and even supporters have raised several
objections. Doris Srinivasan has argued that the figure does not have three faces or yogic
posture and that in Vedic literature Rudra was not a protector of wild animals.[189][190] Herbert
Sullivan and Alf Hiltebeitel also rejected Marshall's conclusions, with the former claiming that the
figure was female, while the latter associated the figure with Mahisha, the Buffalo God and the
surrounding animals with vahanas (vehicles) of deities for the four cardinal directions.[191]
[192]
Writing in 2002, Gregory L. Possehl concluded that while it would be appropriate to recognise
the figure as a deity, its association with the water buffalo, and its posture as one of ritual
discipline, regarding it as a proto-Shiva would be going too far.[188] Despite the criticisms of
Marshall's association of the seal with a proto-Shiva icon, it has been interpreted as
the Tirthankara Rishabhanatha by some scholars of Jainism like Vilas Sangave.[193] Historians
such as Heinrich Zimmer and Thomas McEvilley believe that there is a connection between first
Jain Tirthankara Rishabhanatha and the Indus Valley Civilisation.[194][195]
Marshall hypothesised the existence of a cult of Mother Goddess worship based upon excavation
of several female figurines and thought that this was a precursor of the Hindu sect of Shaktism.
However the function of the female figurines in the life of Indus Valley people remains unclear,
and Possehl does not regard the evidence for Marshall's hypothesis to be "terribly robust".
[196]
Some of the baetyls interpreted by Marshall to be sacred phallic representations are now
thought to have been used as pestles or game counters instead, while the ring stones that were
thought to symbolise yoni were determined to be architectural features used to stand pillars,
although the possibility of their religious symbolism cannot be eliminated.[197] Many Indus Valley
seals show animals, with some depicting them being carried in processions, while others
show chimeric creations. One seal from Mohenjo-daro shows a half-human, a half-buffalo
monster attacking a tiger, which may be a reference to the Sumerian myth of such a monster
created by goddess Aruru to fight Gilgamesh.[198]
In contrast to contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations, Indus Valley lacks any
monumental palaces, even though excavated cities indicate that the society possessed the
requisite engineering knowledge.[199][200] This may suggest that religious ceremonies if any, may
have been largely confined to individual homes, small temples, or the open air. Several sites
have been proposed by Marshall and later scholars as possibly devoted to religious purposes,
but at present only the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is widely thought to have been so used, as a
place for ritual purification.[196][201] The funerary practices of the Harappan civilisation are marked by
fractional burial (in which the body is reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements
before final interment), and even cremation.[202][203]

Late Harappan[edit]

Late Harappan Period, c. 1900–1300 BCE

Bronze Late Harappan figures from a hoard

at Daimabad, c. 2000 BCE (Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay) [204]
Around 1900 BCE signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE most of
the cities had been abandoned. Recent examination of human skeletons from the site of
Harappa has demonstrated that the end of the Indus civilisation saw an increase in inter-personal
violence and in infectious diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis.[205][206]
According to historian Upinder Singh, "the general picture presented by the late Harappan phase
is one of a breakdown of urban networks and an expansion of rural ones."[207]
During the period of approximately 1900 to 1700 BCE, multiple regional cultures emerged within
the area of the Indus civilisation. The Cemetery H culture was in Punjab, Haryana, and Western
Uttar Pradesh, the Jhukar culture was in Sindh, and the Rangpur culture (characterised by
Lustrous Red Ware pottery) was in Gujarat.[208][209][210] Other sites associated with the Late phase of
the Harappan culture are Pirak in Balochistan, Pakistan, and Daimabad in Maharashtra, India.[102]
The largest Late Harappan sites are Kudwala in Cholistan in Punjab, Bet Dwarka in Gujarat,
and Daimabad in Maharashtra, which can be considered as urban, but they are smaller and few
in number compared with the Mature Harappan cities. Bet Dwarka was fortified and continued to
have contacts with the Persian Gulf region, but there was a general decrease of long-distance
trade.[211] On the other hand, the period also saw a diversification of the agricultural base, with a
diversity of crops and the advent of double-cropping, as well as a shift of rural settlement towards
the east and the south.[212]
The pottery of the Late Harappan period is described as "showing some continuity with mature
Harappan pottery traditions", but also distinctive differences.[213] Many sites continued to be
occupied for some centuries, although their urban features declined and disappeared. Formerly
typical artifacts such as stone weights and female figurines became rare. There are some
circular stamp seals with geometric designs, but lacking the Indus script which characterised the
mature phase of the civilisation. Script is rare and confined to potsherd inscriptions.[213] There was
also a decline in long-distance trade, although the local cultures show new innovations
in faience and glass making, and carving of stone beads.[102] Urban amenities such as drains and
the public bath were no longer maintained, and newer buildings were "poorly constructed". Stone
sculptures were deliberately vandalised, valuables were sometimes concealed in hoards,
suggesting unrest, and the corpses of animals and even humans were left unburied in the streets
and in abandoned buildings.[214]
During the later half of the 2nd millennium BCE, most of the post-urban Late Harappan
settlements were abandoned altogether. Subsequent material culture was typically characterised
by temporary occupation, "the campsites of a population which was nomadic and mainly
pastoralist" and which used "crude handmade pottery".[215] However, there is greater continuity
and overlap between Late Harappan and subsequent cultural phases at sites
in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, primarily small rural settlements.[212][216]
Aryan migration[edit]
See also: Vedic period and Indo-Aryan migrations

Painted pottery urns from Harappa (Cemetery H culture, c.

1900–1300 BCE), National Museum, New Delhi
In 1953 Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central
Asia, the "Aryans", caused the decline of the Indus civilisation. As evidence, he cited a group of
37 skeletons found in various parts of Mohenjo-daro, and passages in the Vedas referring to
battles and forts. However, scholars soon started to reject Wheeler's theory, since the skeletons
belonged to a period after the city's abandonment and none were found near the citadel.
Subsequent examinations of the skeletons by Kenneth Kennedy in 1994 showed that the marks
on the skulls were caused by erosion, and not by violence.[217]
In the Cemetery H culture (the late Harappan phase in the Punjab region), some of the designs
painted on the funerary urns have been interpreted through the lens of Vedic literature: for
instance, peacocks with hollow bodies and a small human form inside, which has been
interpreted as the souls of the dead, and a hound that can be seen as the hound of Yama, the
god of death.[218][219] This may indicate the introduction of new religious beliefs during this period,
but the archaeological evidence does not support the hypothesis that the Cemetery H people
were the destroyers of the Harappan cities.[220]
Climate change and drought[edit]
See also: Bond event and 4.2-kiloyear event
Suggested contributory causes for the localisation of the IVC include changes in the course of
the river,[221] and climate change that is also signaled for the neighboring areas of the Middle East.
[222][223]
As of 2016 many scholars believe that drought, and a decline in trade with Egypt and
Mesopotamia, caused the collapse of the Indus civilisation.[224] The climate change which caused
the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation was possibly due to "an abrupt and critical mega-
drought and cooling 4,200 years ago," which marks the onset of the Meghalayan Age, the
present stage of the Holocene.[225]
The Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed,[226][ak][227][al] and water-supply depended on the monsoons.
The Indus Valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BCE, linked to a
general weakening of the monsoon at that time.[4] The Indian monsoon declined and aridity
increased, with the Ghaggar-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills of the Himalaya,[4][228]
[229]
leading to erratic and less extensive floods that made inundation agriculture less sustainable.
Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and scatter its
population eastward.[230][231][104][e] According to Giosan et al. (2012), the IVC residents did not
develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer
floods. As the monsoons kept shifting south, the floods grew too erratic for sustainable
agricultural activities. The residents then migrated towards the Ganges basin in the east, where
they established smaller villages and isolated farms. The small surplus produced in these small
communities did not allow the development of trade, and the cities died out.[232][233]
Continuity and coexistence[edit]
Archaeological excavations indicate that the decline of Harappa drove people eastward.
[234]
According to Possehl, after 1900 BCE the number of sites in today's India increased from 218
to 853. According to Andrew Lawler, "excavations along the Gangetic plain show that cities
began to arise there starting about 1200 BCE, just a few centuries after Harappa was deserted
and much earlier than once suspected."[224][am] According to Jim Shaffer there was a continuous
series of cultural developments, just as in most areas of the world. These link "the so-called two
major phases of urbanisation in South Asia".[236]
At sites such as Bhagwanpura (in Haryana), archaeological excavations have discovered an
overlap between the final phase of Late Harappan pottery and the earliest phase of Painted Grey
Ware pottery, the latter being associated with the Vedic culture and dating from around
1200 BCE. This site provides evidence of multiple social groups occupying the same village but
using different pottery and living in different types of houses: "over time the Late Harappan
pottery was gradually replaced by Painted Grey ware pottery," and other cultural changes
indicated by archaeology include the introduction of the horse, iron tools, and new religious
practices.[102]
There is also a Harappan site called Rojdi in Rajkot district of Saurashtra. Its excavation started
under an archaeological team from Gujarat State Department of Archaeology and the Museum of
the University of Pennsylvania in 1982–83. In their report on archaeological excavations at
Rojdi, Gregory Possehl and M.H. Raval write that although there are "obvious signs of cultural
continuity" between the Harappan civilisation and later South Asian cultures, many aspects of the
Harappan "sociocultural system" and "integrated civilization" were "lost forever," while the
Second Urbanisation of India (beginning with the Northern Black Polished Ware culture, c.
600 BCE) "lies well outside this sociocultural environment".[237]

Post-Harappan[edit]
Main article: Iron Age in India
Previously, scholars believed that the decline of the Harappan civilisation led to an interruption of
urban life in the Indian subcontinent. However, the Indus Valley Civilisation did not disappear
suddenly, and many elements of the Indus civilisation appear in later cultures. The Cemetery H
culture may be the manifestation of the Late Harappan over a large area in the region
of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, and the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture its
successor. David Gordon White cites three other mainstream scholars who "have emphatically
demonstrated" that Vedic religion derives partially from the Indus Valley Civilisations.[238]
As of 2016, archaeological data suggests that the material culture classified as Late Harappan
may have persisted until at least c. 1000–900 BCE and was partially contemporaneous with
the Painted Grey Ware culture.[236] Harvard archaeologist Richard Meadow points to the late
Harappan settlement of Pirak, which thrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the
invasion of Alexander the Great in 325 BCE.[224]
In the aftermath of the Indus civilisation's localisation, regional cultures emerged, to varying
degrees showing the influence of the Indus civilisation. In the formerly great city of Harappa,
burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called the Cemetery H culture. At
the same time, the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture expanded from Rajasthan into the Gangetic
Plain. The Cemetery H culture has the earliest evidence for cremation; a practice dominant
in Hinduism today.
The inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilisation migrated from the river valleys of Indus and
Ghaggar-Hakra, towards the Himalayan foothills of the Ganga-Yamuna basin.[239]

See also[edit]
 Cradle of civilization
 History of Hinduism
 History of Afghanistan
 History of India
 History of Pakistan
 List of Indus Valley Civilisation sites
 List of inventions and discoveries of the Indus Valley Civilisation
 Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization
 Early Indians – 2018 book by Tony Joseph
 Sanitation of the Indus Valley civilisation
 Hydraulic engineering of the Indus Valley Civilization

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Wright: "Mesopotamia and Egypt ... co-existed with the Indus civilization during its
florescence between 2600 and 1900 BC."[2]
2. ^ Wright: "The Indus civilisation is one of three in the 'Ancient East' that, along with
Mesopotamia and Pharaonic Egypt, was a cradle of early civilisation in the Old World
(Childe, 1950). Mesopotamia and Egypt were longer-lived, but coexisted with Indus
civilisation during its florescence between 2600 and 1900 B.C. Of the three, the Indus
was the most expansive, extending from today's northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and
India."[3]
3. ^ Habib: "Harappa, in Sahiwal district of west Punjab, Pakistan, had long been known to
archaeologists as an extensive site on the Ravi river, but its true significance as a major
city of an early great civilization remained unrecognized until the discovery of Mohenjo-
daro near the banks of the Indus, in the Larkana district of Sindh, by Rakhaldas Banerji in
 1922. Sir John Marshall, then Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India,
used the term 'Indus civilization' for the culture discovered at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro,
a term doubly apt because of the geographical context implied in the name 'Indus' and
the presence of cities implied in the word 'civilization'. Others, notably the Archaeological
Survey of India after Independence, have preferred to call it 'Harappan', or 'Mature
Harappan', taking Harappa to be its type-site."[5]
4. ^ These covered carnelian products, seal carving, work in copper, bronze, lead, and tin.[9]
5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Brooke (2014), p. 296. "The story in Harappan India was somewhat
different (see Figure 111.3). The Bronze Age village and urban societies of the Indus
Valley are something of an anomaly, in that archaeologists have found little indication of
local defense and regional warfare. It would seem that the bountiful monsoon rainfall of
the Early to Mid-Holocene had forged a condition of plenty for all and that competitive
energies were channeled into commerce rather than conflict. Scholars have long argued
that these rains shaped the origins of the urban Harappan societies, which emerged from
Neolithic villages around 2600 BC. It now appears that this rainfall began to slowly taper
off in the third millennium, at just the point that the Harappan cities began to develop.
Thus it seems that this "first urbanisation" in South Asia was the initial response of the
Indus Valley peoples to the beginning of Late Holocene aridification. These cities were
maintained for 300 to 400 years and then gradually abandoned as the Harappan peoples
resettled in scattered villages in the eastern range of their territories, into Punjab and the
Ganges Valley....' 17 (footnote):
(a) Giosan et al. (2012);
(b) Ponton et al. (2012);
(c) Rashid et al. (2011);
(d) Madella & Fuller (2006);
Compare with the very different interpretations in
(e) Possehl (2002), pp. 237–245
(f) Staubwasser et al. (2003)
6. ^ Jump up to:a b c Reported sites:
 Possehl 2002, p. 20; Possehl 2002a: "There are 1,056 Mature Harappan
sites that have been reported of which 96 have been excavated."
 Singh, Upinder 2008, p. 137: "Today, the count of Harappan sites has risen
to about 1,022, of which 406 are in Pakistan and 616 in India. Of these, only
97 have so far been excavated."
 Coningham & Young 2015, p. 192: "More than 1,000 settlements belonging
to the Integrated Era have been identified (Singh, 2008: 137)"
7. ^ Coningham and Young: "More than 1,000 settlements belonging to the Integrated Era
have been identified (Singh, 2008: 137), but there are only five significant urban sites at
the peak of the settlement hierarchy (Smith, 2.006a: 110) (Figure 6.2).These are:
Mohenjo-daro in the lower Indus plain; Harappa in the western Punjab; Ganweriwala in
Cholistan; Dholavira in western Gujarat; and Rakhigarhi in Haryana. Mohenjo-daro
covered an area of more than 250 hectares, Harappa exceeded 150 hectares, Dholavira
100 hectares and Ganweriwala and Rakhigarhi around 80 hectares each."[12]
8. ^ Wright: "Five major Indus cities are discussed in this chapter. During the Urban period,
the early town of Harappa expanded in size and population and became a major centre in
the Upper Indus. Other cities emerging during the Urban period include Mohenjo-daro in
the Lower Indus, Dholavira to the south on the western edge of peninsular India in Kutch,
Ganweriwala in Cholistan, and a fifth city, Rakhigarhi, on the Ghaggar-Hakra. Rakhigarhi
will be discussed briefly in view of the limited published material."[13]
9. ^ Wright: "Unable to state the age of the civilization, he went on to observe that the Indus
(which he (John Marshall) named after the river system) artifacts differed from any known
other civilizations in the region, ..."[17]
10. ^ Habib: "Sir John Marshall, then Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India,
used the term 'Indus civilization' for the culture discovered at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro,
a term doubly apt because of the geographical context implied in the name 'Indus' and
the presence of cities implied in the word 'civilization'. Others, notably the Archaeological
Survey of India after Independence, have preferred to call it 'Harappan', or 'Mature
Harappan', taking Harappa to be its type-site."[18]
11. ^ Giosan (2012): "Numerous speculations have advanced the idea that the Ghaggar-
Hakra fluvial system, at times identified with the lost mythical river of Sarasvati (e.g., 4, 5,
7, 19), was a large glacier fed Himalayan river. Potential sources for this river include the
Yamuna River, the Sutlej River, or both rivers. However, the lack of large-scale incision
 on the interfluve demonstrates that large, glacier-fed rivers did not flow across the
Ghaggar-Hakra region during the Holocene. ... The present Ghaggar-Hakra valley and its
tributary rivers are currently dry or have seasonal flows. Yet rivers were undoubtedly
active in this region during the Urban Harappan Phase. We recovered sandy fluvial
deposits approximately 5,400 y old at Fort Abbas in Pakistan (SI Text), and recent work
(33) on the upper Ghaggar-Hakra interfluve in India also documented Holocene channel
sands that are approximately 4,300 y old. On the upper interfluve, fine-grained floodplain
deposition continued until the end of the Late Harappan Phase, as recent as 2,900 y ago
(33) (Fig. 2B). This widespread fluvial redistribution of sediment suggests that reliable
monsoon rains were able to sustain perennial rivers earlier during the Holocene and
explains why Harappan settlements flourished along the entire Ghaggar-Hakra system
without access to a glacier-fed river."[4]
12. ^ Fisher: "This was the same broad period that saw the rise of the civilisations of
Mesopotamia (between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers), Egypt (along the Nile), and
northeast China (in the Yellow River basin). At its peak, the Indus was the most extensive
of these ancient civilisations, extending 1,500 km (900 mi) up the Indus plain, with a core
area of 30,000 to 100,000 km2 (12,000 to 39,000 sq mi) and with more ecologically
diverse peripheral spheres of economic and cultural influence extending out to ten times
that area. The cultural and technological uniformity of the Indus cities is especially striking
in light of the relatively great distances among them, with separations of about 280 km
(170 mi) whereas the Mesopotamian cities, for example, only averaged about 20 to
25 km (12 to 16 mi) apart.[22]
13. ^ Dyson: "The subcontinent's people were hunter-gatherers for many millennia. There
were very few of them. Indeed, 10,000 years ago there may only have been a couple of
hundred thousand people, living in small, often isolated groups, the descendants of
various 'modern' human incomers. Then, perhaps linked to events in Mesopotamia, about
8,500 years ago agriculture emerged in Baluchistan."[23]
14. ^ Fisher: "The earliest discovered instance in India of well-established, settled agricultural
society is at Mehrgarh in the hills between the Bolan Pass and the Indus plain (today in
Pakistan) (see Map 3.1). From as early as 7000 BCE, communities there started
investing increased labor in preparing the land and selecting, planting, tending, and
harvesting particular grain-producing plants. They also domesticated animals, including
sheep, goats, pigs, and oxen (both humped zebu [Bos indicus] and unhumped [Bos
taurus]). Castrating oxen, for instance, turned them from mainly meat sources into
domesticated draft-animals as well.[24]
15. ^ Coningham and Young: "Mehrgarh remains one of the key sites in South Asia because
it has provided the earliest known undisputed evidence for farming and pastoral
communities in the region, and its plant and animal material provide clear evidence for
the ongoing manipulation, and domestication, of certain species. Perhaps most
importantly in a South Asian context, the role played by zebu makes this a distinctive,
localised development, with a character completely different to other parts of the world.
Finally, the longevity of the site, and its articulation with the neighbouring site of Nausharo
(c. 2800–2000 BCE), provides a very clear continuity from South Asia's first farming
villages to the emergence of its first cities (Jarrige, 1984)."[25]
16. ^ Dyson: "In the millennia which followed, farming developed and spread slowly into the
Indus valley and adjacent areas. The transition to agriculture led to population growth and
the eventual rise of the Indus civilisation. With the movement to settled agriculture, and
the emergence of villages, towns and cities, there was probably a modest rise in the
average death rate and a slightly greater rise in the birth rate."[23]
17. ^ Dyson: "Mohenjo-daro and Harappa may each have contained between 30,000 and
60,000 people (perhaps more in the former case). Water transport was crucial for the
provisioning of these and other cities. That said, the vast majority of people lived in rural
areas. At the height of the Indus valley civilisation the subcontinent may have contained
4-6 million people."[23]
18. ^ Fisher: "Such an "agricultural revolution" enabled food surpluses that supported growing
populations. Their, largely cereal diet did not necessarily make people healthier, however,
since conditions like caries and protein deficiencies can increase. Further, infectious
diseases spread faster with denser living conditions of both humans and domesticated
animals (which can spread measles, influenza, and other diseases to humans)."[24]
19. ^ McIntosh: "Population Growth and Distribution: "The prehistory of the Indo-Iranian
borderlands shows a steady increase over time in the number and density of settlements
based on farming and pastoralism. By contrast, the population of the Indus plains and
adjacent regions lived mainly by hunting and gathering; the limited traces suggest their
 settlements were far fewer in number, and were small and widely scattered, though to
some extent this apparent situation must reflect the difficulty of locating hunter-gatherer
settlements. The presence of domestic animals in some hunter-gatherer settlements
attests to contact with the people of the border-lands, probably in the context of
pastoralists' seasonal movement from the hills into the plains. The potential for population
expansion in the hills was severely limited, and so, from the fourth millennium into the
third, settlers moved out from the borderlands into the plains and beyond into Gujarat, the
first being pastoralists, followed later by farmers. The enormous potential of the greater
Indus region offered scope for huge population increase; by the end of the Mature
Harappan period, the Harappans are estimated to have numbered somewhere between 1
and 5 million, probably well below the region's carrying capacity."[26]
20. ^ Masson: "A long march preceded our arrival at Haripah, through jangal of the closest
description ... When I joined the camp I found it in front of the village and ruinous brick
castle. Behind us was a large circular mound, or eminence, and to the west was an
irregular rocky height, crowned with the remains of buildings, in fragments of walls, with
niches, after the eastern manner ... Tradition affirms the existence here of a city, so
considerable that it extended to Chicha Watni, thirteen cosses distant, and that it was
destroyed by a particular visitation of Providence, brought down by the lust and crimes of
the sovereign."[38]
21. ^ Guha: "The intense explorations to locate sites related to the Indus civilisation along the
Ghaggar-Hakra, mostly by the Archaeological Survey of India immediately after Indian
independence (from the 1950s through the 1970s), although ostensibly following Sir Aurel
Stein's explorations in 1942, were to a large extent initiated by a patriotic zeal to
compensate for the loss of this more ancient civilisation by the newly freed nation; as
apart from Rangpur (Gujarat) and Kotla Nihang Khan (Punjab), the sites remained in
Pakistan."[50]
22. ^ Number of Indus script inscribed objects and seals obtained from various Harappan
sites: 1540 from Mohanjodaro, 985 from Harappa, 66 from Chanhudaro, 165 from Lothal,
99 from Kalibangan, 7 from Banawali, 6 from Ur in Iraq, 5 from Surkotada, 4 from
Chandigarh
23. ^ According to Ahmad Hasan Dani, professor emeritus at Quaid-e-Azam
University, Islamabad, the discovery of Mehrgarh "changed the entire concept of the
Indus civilisation ... There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of
settled village life."[60]
24. ^ Jump up to:a b According to Gangal et al. (2014), there is strong archeological and
geographical evidence that neolithic farming spread from the Near East into north-west
India.[75][76] Gangal et al. (2014):[75] "There are several lines of evidence that support the
idea of a connection between the Neolithic in the Near East and in the Indian
subcontinent. The prehistoric site of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan (modern Pakistan) is the
earliest Neolithic site in the north-west Indian subcontinent, dated as early as
8500 BCE."[78]
25. ^ Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh include more than 90% barley and a small
amount of wheat. There is good evidence for the local domestication of barley and the
zebu cattle at Mehrgarh,[77][79] but the wheat varieties are suggested to be of Near-Eastern
origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant
and Southern Turkey.[80] A detailed satellite map study of a few archaeological sites in the
Baluchistan and Khybar Pakhtunkhwa regions also suggests similarities in early phases
of farming with sites in Western Asia.[81] Pottery prepared by sequential slab construction,
circular fire pits filled with burnt pebbles, and large granaries are common to both
Mehrgarh and many Mesopotamian sites.[82] The postures of the skeletal remains in
graves at Mehrgarh bear strong resemblance to those at Ali Kosh in the Zagros
Mountains of southern Iran.[77] Clay figurines found in Mehrgarh resemble those
discovered at Teppe Zagheh on the Qazvin plain south of the Elburz range in Iran (the
7th millennium BCE) and Jeitun in Turkmenistan (the 6th millennium BCE).[83] Strong
arguments have been made for the Near-Eastern origin of some domesticated plants and
herd animals at Jeitun in Turkmenistan (pp. 225–227).[84]
26. ^ The Near East is separated from the Indus Valley by the arid plateaus, ridges and
deserts of Iran and Afghanistan, where rainfall agriculture is possible only in the foothills
and cul-de-sac valleys.[85] Nevertheless, this area was not an insurmountable obstacle for
the dispersal of the Neolithic. The route south of the Caspian sea is a part of the Silk
Road, some sections of which were in use from at least 3,000 BCE, connecting
Badakhshan (north-eastern Afghanistan and south-eastern Tajikistan) with Western Asia,
Egypt and India.[86] Similarly, the section from Badakhshan to the Mesopotamian plains
 (the Great Khorasan Road) was apparently functioning by 4,000 BCE and numerous
prehistoric sites are located along it, whose assemblages are dominated by
the Cheshmeh-Ali (Tehran Plain) ceramic technology, forms and designs.[85] Striking
similarities in figurines and pottery styles, and mud-brick shapes, between widely
separated early Neolithic sites in the Zagros Mountains of north-western Iran (Jarmo and
Sarab), the Deh Luran Plain in southwestern Iran (Tappeh Ali Kosh and Chogha Sefid),
Susiana (Chogha Bonut and Chogha Mish), the Iranian Central Plateau (Tappeh-Sang-e
Chakhmaq), and Turkmenistan (Jeitun) suggest a common incipient culture.[87] The
Neolithic dispersal across South Asia plausibly involved migration of the population.[88]
[84]
This possibility is also supported by Y-chromosome and mtDNA analyses.[89][90]
27. ^ They further noted that "the direct lineal descendents of the Neolithic inhabitants of
Mehrgarh are to be found to the south and the east of Mehrgarh, in northwestern India
and the western edge of the Deccan plateau," with neolithic Mehrgarh showing greater
affinity with chalcolithic Inamgaon, south of Mehrgarh, than with chalcolithic Mehrgarh.[91]
28. ^ Gallego romero et al. (2011) refer to (Meadow 1993):[93] Meadow RH. 1993. Animal
domestication in the Middle East: a revised view from the eastern margin. In: Possehl G,
editor. Harappan civilization. New Delhi: Oxford University Press and India Book House.
pp. 295–320.[94]
29. ^ It has been noted that the courtyard pattern and techniques of flooring of Harappan
houses has similarities to the way house-building is still done in some villages of the
region.[110]
30. ^ Jump up to:a b Gangal refers to Jarrige (2008a) and Costantini (2008)
31. ^ Gangal refers to Fuller (2006)
32. ^ A large proportion of data however remains ambiguous. Reliable local isotopic
references for fats and oils are unavailable, and lipid levels in IVC vessels are quite low.
33. ^ See:
 David McAlpin, "Toward Proto-Elamo-Dravidian", Language vol. 50 no. 1
(1974);
 David McAlpin: "Elamite and Dravidian, Further Evidence of
Relationships", Current Anthropology vol. 16 no. 1 (1975);
 David McAlpin: "Linguistic prehistory: the Dravidian situation", in Madhav M.
Deshpande and Peter Edwin Hook: Aryan and Non-Aryan in India, Center
for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(1979);
 David McAlpin, "Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and its
Implications", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society vol. 71 pt.
3, (1981)
34. ^ See also:
 Mukherjee et al. (2001): "More recently, about 15,000–10,000 years before
present (ybp), when agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent region that
extends from Israel through northern Syria to western Iran, there was
another eastward wave of human migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994;
Renfrew 1987), a part of which also appears to have entered India. This
wave has been postulated to have brought the Dravidian languages into
India (Renfrew 1987). Subsequently, the Indo-European (Aryan) language
family was introduced into India about 4,000 ybp."
 Derenko (2013): "The spread of these new technologies has been
associated with the dispersal of Dravidian and Indo-European languages in
southern Asia. It is hypothesized that the proto-Elamo-Dravidian language,
most likely originated in the Elam province in southwestern Iran, spread
eastwards with the movement of farmers to the Indus Valley and the Indian
sub-continent."

Derenko refers to:

* Renfrew (1987), Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-
European Origins
* Renfrew (1996), Language families and the spread of farming. In: Harris
DR, editor, The origins and spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in
Eurasia, pp. 70–92
* Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi & Piazza (1994).
 35. ^ Kumar: "The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides
interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among
Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around
9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was
historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been
associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci
et al., 2001)."[172]
36. ^ Nevertheless, Kivisild et al. (1999) note that "a small fraction of the West Eurasian
mtDNA lineages found in Indian populations can be ascribed to a relatively recent
admixture."[170] at c. 9,300±3,000 years before present,[171] which coincides with "the arrival
to India of cereals domesticated in the Fertile Crescent" and "lends credence to the
suggested linguistic connection between the Elamite and Dravidic
populations."[171] According to Kumar (2004), referring to Quintan-Murci et al. (2001),
"microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an
expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India.
This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the
Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from
south-west Iran."[172][ai] According to Palanichamy et al. (2015), "The presence of mtDNA
haplogroups (HV14 and U1a) and Y-chromosome haplogroup (L1) in Dravidian
populations indicates the spread of the Dravidian language into India from west Asia."[173]
37. ^ Geological research by a group led by Peter Clift investigated how the courses of rivers
have changed in this region since 8000 years ago, to test whether climate or river
reorganisations caused the decline of the Harappan. Using U-Pb dating of zircon sand
grains they found that sediments typical of the Beas, Sutlej, and Yamuna rivers
(Himalayan tributaries of the Indus) are actually present in former Ghaggar-Hakra
channels. However, sediment contributions from these glacial-fed rivers stopped at least
by 10,000 years ago, well before the development of the Indus civilisation.[226]
38. ^ Tripathi et al. (2004) found that the isotopes of sediments carried by the Ghaggar-Hakra
system over the last 20 thousand years do not come from the glaciated Higher Himalaya
but have a sub-Himalayan source, and concluded that the river system was rain-fed.
They also concluded that this contradicted the idea of a Harappan-time mighty
"Sarasvati" river.[227]
39. ^ Most sites of the Painted Grey Ware culture in the Ghaggar-Hakra and Upper Ganges
Plain were small farming villages. However, "several dozen" PGW sites eventually
emerged as relatively large settlements that can be characterized as towns, the largest of
which were fortified by ditches or moats and embankments made of piled earth with
wooden palisades, albeit smaller and simpler than the elaborately fortified large cities
which grew after 600 BCE in the more fully urban Northern Black Polished Ware culture.
[235]

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