“Indus Valley Civilisation”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=1}}{{refn|group=note|Wright: "Mesopotamia and Egypt ... co-existed with the Indus civilization during its florescence between 2600 and 1900 BC."{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=1}}}} Along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilisations of West- and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from northeast Afghanistan, through much of Pakistan, and into western- and northwestern India.{{sfn|Wright|2009}}{{refn|group=note|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."{{sfn|Wright|2009}}}} It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=1}}{{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}}

The civilisation's cities were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin).{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=115–125}} The large cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals,{{Sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}{{refn|group=note|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 civilization the subcontinent may have contained 4-6 million people."{{Sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}}} and the civilisation itself during its florescence may have contained between one and five million individuals.{{Sfn|McIntosh|2008|p=187}}{{refn|group=note|McIntosh: "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 I and 5 million, probably well below the region's carrying capacity."{{Sfn|McIntosh|2008|p=187}}}} Gradual drying of the region's soil during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for the urbanisation associated with the civilisation, but eventually also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward.{{Sfn|Madella|Fuller|2006}}{{Sfn|MacDonald|2011}}{{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}}{{Sfn|Brooke|2014}}

The Indus civilisation is also known as the Harappan Civilisation, after its type site, Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and now is Pakistan.{{Sfn|Habib|2015|p=13}}{{refn|group=note|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 R.D. 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."{{Sfn|Habib|2015|p=13}}}} The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-Daro was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India during the British Raj.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=2}} There were however earlier and later cultures often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area; for this reason, the Harappan civilisation is sometimes called the Mature Harappan to distinguish it from these other cultures. By 2002, over 1,000 Mature Harappan cities and settlements had been reported, of which just under a hundred had been excavated,{{Sfn|Possehl|2002a|pp=62–76}}{{refn|group=note|Possehl: "There are 1,056 Mature Harappan sites that have been reported of which 96 have been excavated."{{Sfn|Possehl|2002a|pp=62–76}}}}{{Sfn|Possehl|2002|p=20}}{{Sfn|Singh|2008|p=137}}{{refn|group=note|Singh: "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."{{Sfn|Singh|2008|p=137}}}} However, there are only five major urban sites:{{Sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=192}}{{refn|group=note|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."{{Sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=192}}}} Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala in Cholistan and Rakhigarhi.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=107}}{{refn|group=note|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 center 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."{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=107}}}} The early Harappan cultures were preceded by local Neolithic agricultural villages, from which the river plains were populated.^[1]{{sfn|Kenoyer|1991}}

The Harappan language is not directly attested, and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still undeciphered.^[2] A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars.^[3]^[4]

Name

The Indus Valley Civilisation is named after the Indus river system in whose alluvial plains the early sites of the civilisation were identified and excavated.{{sfn|Wright|2009|p=10}}{{refn|group=note|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, ..."{{sfn|Wright|2009|p=10}} }} 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.{{sfn|Habib|2002|pp=13–14}}{{refn|group=note|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. "{{sfn|Habib|2002|pp=13–14}}}}

A section of scholars use the terms "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilisation", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation", because they consider the Ghaggar-Hakra river to be the same as the Sarasvati,^[5]^[5]^[6] a river mentioned several times in the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns composed in the second millennium BCE. {{sfn|Mukherjee|2001b}}{{sfn|Habib|2002|p=44}}{{sfn|Danino|2010}}{{refn|group=note|For example Michel Danino notes that an alternative dating of the Vedas to the third millennium BCE coincides with the mature phase of the Indus Valley civilisation,{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256}} and that it is "tempting" to equate the Indus Valley and Vedic cultures.{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=258}} S.P. Gupta "argued that Vedic elements such as the horse, fire altars and animal sacrifices had existed at the socalled 'Indus-Sarasvati' culture sites."{{sfn|Habib|2002|p=44}} These suggestions are rejected by mainstream scholarship.{{sfn|Mukherjee|2001b}}}} However, recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, whose descriptions in the Rig Veda are those of 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.{{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}} {{refn|group=note|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."{{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}}}} In addition, proponents of the Sarasvati nomenclature see a connection between the decline of the Indus civilisation and the rise of the Vedic civilisation on the Gangetic plain; however, historians of the decline of the mature Indus civilisation consider the two to be substantially disconnected.{{Sfn|Sen|2019|p=81}}{{refn|group=note|Sen: "The so-called lost-Saraswati controversy has reignited the debate about the end of the Harappan civilization and the beginning of the Vedic civilization of the Ganges. Were aspects of the mature Vedic cultures of the first millennium B.C.E. derived from a late version of the Indus Valley culture? Historians of the decline of the Harappan phase of the Indus Valley civilization such as Shereen Ratnagar have described the two as essentially disconnected, separated in both time and substance."{{Sfn|Sen|2019|p=81}}}}

Extent

The Indus civilization was roughly contemporary with the other riverine civilisations of the ancient world: 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. 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 km (930 miles) up the alluvial plane 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.{{sfn|Fisher|2018|p=35}}{{refn|group=note|Fisher: "This was the same broad period that saw the rise of the civilizations 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 civilizations, extending 1,500 km (930 mi) up the Indus plain, with a core area of 30,000-100,000 km2 (11,600-38,600 mil) 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 (175 mi) whereas the Mesopotamian cities, for example, only averaged about 20-25 km (12.5-16 mi) apart.{{sfn|Fisher|2018|p=35}}}}

Around 6500 BCE, agriculture emerged in Balochistan, on the margins of the Indus alluvium.{{sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}{{refn|group=note|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."{{sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}}}{{sfn|Fisher|2018|p=33}}{{refn|group=note|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.{{sfn|Fisher|2018|p=33}}}} In the following millenniums, settled life made inroads into the Indus plains, setting the stage for the growth of rural and urban human settlements.{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=138}}{{refn|group=note|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)."{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=138}}}} The more organized sedentary life in turn led to a net increase in the birth rate.{{sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}{{refn|group=note|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 civilization. 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."{{sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}}} The large urban centres of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and during the civilization's florescence, the population of the subcontinent grew to between 4–6 million people.{{Sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}{{refn|group=note|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 civilization the subcontinent may have contained 4-6 million people."{{Sfn|Dyson|2018|p=29}}}} During this period the death rate increased as well, for close living conditions of humans and domesticated animals led to an increase in contagious diseases.{{sfn|Fisher|2018|p=33}}{{refn|group=note|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)."{{sfn|Fisher|2018|p=33}}}} According to one estimate, the population of the Indus civilization at its peak may have been between one and five million.{{Sfn|McIntosh|2008|pp=186–187}}{{refn|group=note|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. In 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 I and 5 million, probably well below the region's carrying capacity."{{Sfn|McIntosh|2008|pp=186–187}}}}

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) extended from Pakistan's Balochistan in the west to India's western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from northeastern Afghanistan in the north to India's Gujarat state in the south.^[7] The largest number of sites are in Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states in India,^[7] and Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan provinces in Pakistan.^[7] Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor^[8] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal^[9] in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan,^[10] in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan,^[11] at Manda, Jammu on the Beas River near Jammu,^[12] India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi.^[13] The southern most 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,^[14] for example, Balakot,^[15] and on islands, for example, Dholavira.^[16]

Discovery and history of excavation

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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}} In 1829, Masson traveled through the princely state of Punjab, gathering useful intelligence for the Company in return for a promise of clemency.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}} An aspect of this arrangement was the additional requirement to hand over to the Company any historical artifacts acquired during his travels. Masson, who was versed 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, whose archaeological sites had been noted by the campaign's chroniclers.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}} Masson's major archaeological discovery in the Punjab was Harappa, a metropolis of the Indus civilization that lay buried in the valley of Indus's tributary, the Ravi river. Masson made copious notes and illustrations of Harappa's rich historical artifacts, many appearing half buried in plain view. 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}} Masson was impressed by the site's extraordinary size and by several large mounds formed from long existing erosion.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}}{{refn|group=note|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."{{sfn|Masson|1842|pp=452–453}} }}

Two years later, the Company contracted Alexander Burnes to sail up the Indus to assess the feasibility of water travel for its army.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}} 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=5–6}}

Despite these reports, Harappa was raided even more perilously for its bricks after the British annexation of the Punjab in 1848–49. A large number of its bricks were carted away as track ballast for the railway lines being laid by the Company in the Punjab.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=6}} Some 100 miles of railway track between Multan and Lahore, laid in the mid 1850s, was supported by Harappan bricks .{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=6}}

In 1861, three years after the dissolution of the East India Company and the establishment of Crown rule in India, the activity of archaeology on the subcontinent became more formally organised with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=6–7}} 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=6–7}}{{Sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=180}} 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,{{Sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=180}} Cunningham did publish his findings in 1875.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=7}} 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=7}} ^[17]

Archaeological work in Harappa thereafter flagged until a new viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, pushed through the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act 1904, and appointed John Marshall to lead the ASI.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=8}} 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=8}} Expropriating Harappa for the ASI under the Act, Marshall directed ASI archaeologist Daya Ram Sahni to excavate the site's two mounds.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=8}}

Meanwhile, farther south, along the main stem of the Indus in Sind province, the largely undisturbed site of Mohenjo daro had brought notice.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=8}} Marshall deputed a succession of ASI officers to survey the site. These included D. R. Bhandarkar (1911), R. D. Banerji (1919, 1922–3), and M. S. Vats (1924).{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=8–9}} In 1923, on his second visit to Mohenjo-daro, Baneriji wrote to Marshall about the site, postulating for it an origin in "remote antiquity," and noting a congruence of some of its artifacts with those of Harappa.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=9}} Later in 1923, Vats, also in correspondence with Marshall, noted the same more specifically about the seals and the script found at both sites.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=9}} 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=9–10}} 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:{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=10}}

Systematic excavations began in Mohenjo daro with K. N. Dikshit's (1924–5), continuing with those of H. Hargreaves (1925–6), and Ernest J. H. Mackay (1927–1931).{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=8–9}} By 1931, much of Mohenjo-daro had been excavated, but occasional excavations continued, such one led by Mortimer Wheeler, a new director-general of the ASI appointed in 1944.

After the partition of India in 1947 and the loss of most excavated sites of the Indus Valley civilisation to Pakistan, the Archaeological Survey of India carried out large numbers of surveys and excavations along the Ghaggar-Hakra system in India.^[18]{{refn|group=note|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 ‘70s), 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."^[18]}} Hopes began to rise among some in India that the Ghaggar-Hakra system might have more sites than the Indus valley.^[19] By 2002, over 1,000 Mature Harappan cities and settlements had been reported, of which just under a hundred had been excavated,^[20]{{Sfn|Possehl|2002|p=20}}^[21]^[26] 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.^[22] According to a historian approximately 616 sites have been reported in India,^[7] whereas 406 sites have been reported in Pakistan.^[7] However, according to an archaeologist, many Ghaggar-Hakra sites in India are of local cultures; some sites display contact with Harappan civilization, but only a few are fully developed Harappan ones.^[23]

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.^[24] 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.{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=85|postscript=:Quote: "At the same time he continued to spend part of the years 1949 and 1950 in Pakistan as an adviser to the Government, overseeing the establishment of the government’s Department of Archaeology in Pakistan and the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi ... He returned to Pakistan in 1958 to carry out excavations at Charsadda and then joined the UNESCO team concerned with the preservation and conservation of Mohenjo-daro during the 1960s. Mohenjo-daro was eventually inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980."}} 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.{{Sfn|Wright|2009|p=14}} Beginning in the early 1970s, following a chance flash flood which exposed a portion of an archaeological site at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, excavations was carried out in Mehrgarh by French archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige and his team.{{Sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=109|postscript=:Quote: "This model of population movement and agricultural diffusion , built on the evidence from Kili Gul Muhammad , was completely revised with the discovery of Mehrgarh at the entrance of the Bolan Pass in Baluchistan in the early 1970s by Jean-Francois Jarrige and his team (Jarrige 1979 ). Noting an archaeological section exposed by flash flooding, they found a site covering two square kilometres which was occupied between circa 6500 and 2500 BCE."}}

Chronology

The cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation 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.'"^[25] The mature phase of the Harappan civilisation lasted from c. 2600 to 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.{{sfn|Kenoyer|1991}}{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=27}}

Several periodisations are employed for the periodisation of the IVC.{{sfn|Kenoyer|1991}}{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=27}} The most commonly used classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase.{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=25}} 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.^[1]{{sfn|Manuel|2010|p=148}}

Pre-Harappan era: Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh is a Neolithic (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE) site to the west of the Indus River valley near the Bolan Pass,^[27] which gave new insights on the emergence of the Indus Valley Civilization.^[25]{{refn|group=note|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."^[25]}} Mehrgarh is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia.^[28]^[29]{{refn|group=note|name="Bhirrana"|Excavations at Bhirrana, Haryana, in India between 2006 and 2009, by archaeologist K.N. Dikshit, provided six artefacts, including "relatively advanced pottery," so-called Hakra ware, which were dated at a time bracket between 7380 and 6201 BCE.^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33] These dates compete with Mehrgarh for being the oldest site for cultural remains in the area.^[34]

Yet, Dikshit and Mani clarify that this time-bracket concerns only charcoal samples, which were radio-carbon dated at respectively 7570–7180 BCE (sample 2481) and 6689–6201 BCE (sample 2333).{{sfn|Dikshit|2013|pp=132, 131}}{{sfn|Mani|2008|p=237}} Dikshit further writes that the earliest phase concerns 14 shallow dwelling-pits which "could accommodate about 3–4 people."{{sfn|Dikshit|2013|p=129}} According to Dikshit, in the lowest level of these pits wheel-made Hakra Ware was found which was "not well finished,"{{sfn|Dikshit|2013|p=129}} together with other wares.{{sfn|Dikshit|2013|p=130}}}} Mehrgarh was influenced by the Near Eastern Neolithic,{{sfn|Gangal|2014}} with similarities between "domesticated wheat varieties, early phases of farming, pottery, other archaeological artefacts, some domesticated plants and herd animals."{{sfn|Singh|2016|p=5}}{{refn|group=note|name="Near East"}} According to Parpola, the culture migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley Civilisation.{{sfn|Parpola|2015|p=17}}

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,"^[35]{{refn|group=note|name="Near East"|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.{{sfn|Gangal|2014}}{{sfn|Singh|2016}} Gangal et al. (2014):{{sfn|Gangal|2014}} "There are several lines of evidence that support the idea of 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.[18]^[36]

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 [19],^[37] [20],^[38] 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 [21].^[39] 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 [22].^[40] 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 [23].^[41] 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 [19].^[42] 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) [24].^[43] Strong arguments have been made for the Near-Eastern origin of some domesticated plants and herd animals at Jeitun in Turkmenistan (pp. 225–227 in [25]).^[44]

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 [26].^[45] 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 [27].^[46] 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 [26].^[47] 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 [28].^[48] The Neolithic dispersal across South Asia plausibly involved migration of the population ([29]^[49] and [25], pp. 231–233).^[50] This possibility is also supported by Y-chromosome and mtDNA analyses [30],^[51] [31]."^[52]}} 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."^[35]

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,{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}} which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow."{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}}{{refn|group=note|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 chalocolithic Inamgaon, south of Mehrgarh, than with chalcolithic Mehrgarh.{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}}}} 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)."{{sfn|Mascarenhas|2015|p=9}} According to Narasimhan et al. (2018), the IVC-population likely resulted from a mixture of Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gatherers, and came into being between c. 4700–3000 BCE.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2018}}{{refn|group=note|See also Tony Joseph, [https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/genomic-study-vedic-aryan-migration-dravidian-languages-sanskrit How We, The Indians, Came To Be], the quint}}

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."{{sfn|Gallego Romero|2011|p=9}} 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."{{sfn|Gallego Romero|2011|p=9}}{{refn|group=note|Gallego romero et al. (2011) refer to (Meadow 1993):{{sfn|Gallego Romero|2011|p=9}} Meadow RH. 1993. Animal domestication in the Middle East: a revised view from the eastern margin. In: Possehl G, editor. Harappan civilization. New Delhi (India): Oxford University Press and India Book House. p 295–320.{{sfn|Gallego Romero|2011|p=12}}}}

Early Harappan

The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River, lasted from {{Circa|3300}} BCE until 2800 BCE. It 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.^[53]^[54]

The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri in Pakistan.^[55] 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.^[56]

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.^[57]^[58]

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.^[59]

Mature Harappan

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. Brooke further notes that the development of advanced cities coincides with a reduction in rainfall, which may have triggered a reorganisation into larger urban centers.^[73]{{refn|group=note|name="Note-Brooke"}}

According to J.G. Shaffer and D.A. Lichtenstein,^[61] 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".^[75]

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.^[62] In total, more than 1,000 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries.^[20]

Cities

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.^[63]

As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi, this urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems: see hydraulic engineering of the Indus Valley Civilisation. 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 house-building in some villages in the region still resembles in some respects the house-building of the Harappans.^[64]

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 impressive 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.^[65]

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 – or of kings, armies, or priests. 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, though clear social levelling is seen in personal adornments.{{clarify|date=March 2016}}

Authority and governance

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; presence of public facilities and monumental architecture; heterogeneity in the mortuary symbolism and in grave goods (items included in burials).{{citation needed|date=May 2016}}

Technology

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. 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. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights.^[67]

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.^[68]

Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in building docks.^[69]

In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, discovered that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from the early Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates from 7,500–9,000 years ago. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of that region.^[70]

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).^[71]

Arts and crafts

Various sculptures, seals, bronze vessels pottery, gold jewellery, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites.^[72] 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.^[73]

A number of gold, terracotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some dance form. These 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.^[74]

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.^[75] 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.^[76] Terracotta female figurines were found (c. 2800–2600 BCE) which had red colour applied to the "manga" (line of partition of the hair).^[76]

The Dancing Girl

Sir John Marshall reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze statuette of a slender-limbed dancing girl in Mohenjo-daro:

Seals

Thousands of steatite seals have been recovered, and their physical character is fairly consistent. In size they range from {{fraction|3|4}} inch to 1{{fraction|1|2}} inches square. In most cases they have a pierced boss at the back to accommodate a cord for handling or for use as personal adornment.

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 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.^[78]

A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothal indicate the use of stringed musical instruments.

Trade and transportation

The Indus civilisation's economy appears to have depended significantly on trade, which was facilitated by major advances in transport technology. The IVC may have been the first civilisation to use wheeled transport.^[79] These advances may have included bullock carts that are 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; however, there is secondary evidence of sea-going craft. Archaeologists have discovered a massive, dredged canal and what they regard as a docking facility at the coastal city of Lothal in western India (Gujarat state). An extensive canal network, used for irrigation, has however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort.^[80]

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.^[81]

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, northern and western India, and Mesopotamia. Studies of tooth enamel from individuals buried at Harappa suggest that some residents had migrated to the city from beyond the Indus Valley.^[82] There is some evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to Egypt.^[83]

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 and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf).^[84] 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.^[85]

In the 1980s, important archaeological discoveries were made at Ras al-Jinz (Oman), demonstrating maritime Indus Valley connections with the Arabian Peninsula.^[85]^[87]^[88]

Agriculture

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."{{sfn|Gangal|2014}}{{refn|group=note|name=Gangal|Gangal refers to Jarrige JF (2008), Mehrgarh Neolithic. Pragdhara 18: 136–154; and to Costantini L (2008), The first farmers in Western Pakistan: the evidence of the Neolithic agropastoral settlement of Mehrgarh. Pragdhara 18: 167–178}}

According to Jean-Francois Jarrige, farming had an independent origin at Mehrgarh, despite the similarities which he notes between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. Nevertheless, Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background," and is not a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East."^[89] 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".^[90]

Jarrige notes that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and barley,^[91] while Shaffer and Liechtenstein note that the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row barley.^[92] 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.{{sfn|Gangal|2014}}{{refn|group=note|Gangal refers to Fuller DQ (2006), Agricultural origins and frontiers in South Asia: a working synthesis. J World Prehistory 20: 1–86}}"

The cattle that are often portrayed on Indus seals are humped Indian aurochs, which are similar to Zebu cattle. Zebu cattle is still common in India, and in Africa. It is different from the European cattle, and had been originally domesticated on the Indian subcontinent, probably in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan.{{sfn|Gallego Romero|2011}}{{sfn|Gangal|2014}}{{refn|group=note|name=Gangal}}

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.^[93] J. 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.^[94]

Language

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.^[95] 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.^[96] 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.{{sfn|Heggarty|Renfrew|2014}} According to David McAlpin, the Dravidian languages were brought to India by immigration into India from Elam.{{refn|group=note|See:

Possible writing system

Between 400 and as many as 600 distinct Indus symbols^[97] have been found on 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 no more than four or five characters in length, most of which (aside from the Dholavira "signboard") are tiny; the longest on a single surface, which is less than 1 inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs long; the longest on any object (found on three different faces of a mass-produced object) has a length of 26 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)^[98] 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.^[99]

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.^[100]^[101]

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".^[102] 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.^[103]

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.^[103]{{rp|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.

Religion

The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley people have 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.{{sfn|keay|}}{{Sfn|Wright|2009|pp=281–282}}

An early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu interpretations of archaeological evidence from the Harappan sites^[105] 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; 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.{{sfn|Marshall|1931|pp=48–78}}{{sfn|Possehl|2002|pp=141–156}}

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.{{sfn|Marshall|1931|pp=48–78}}{{sfn|Possehl|2002|pp=141–144}} 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.{{sfn|Srinivasan|1975}}{{sfn|Srinivasan|1997|pp=180–181}} 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.{{sfn|Sullivan|1964}}{{sfn|Hiltebeitel|2011|pp=399–432}} 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.{{sfn|Possehl|2002|pp=141–144}} Despite the criticisms of Marshall's association of the seal with a proto-Shiva icon, it has been interpreted as the Tirthankara Rishabhanatha by Jains and Vilas Sangave^[106] or an early Buddha by Buddhists.^[105] Historians such as Heinrich Zimmer and Thomas McEvilley believe that there is a connection between first Jain Tirthankara Rishabhanatha and the Indus Valley civilisation.^[107]^[108]

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".{{sfn|Possehl|2002|pp=141–145}} 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.{{sfn|McIntosh|2008|pp=286–287}} 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, 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.{{sfn|Marshall|1931|p=67}}

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.{{sfn|Possehl|2002|p=18}}{{sfn|Thapar|2004|p=85}} 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 purpose, but at present only the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is widely thought to have been so used, as a place for ritual purification.{{sfn|Possehl|2002|pp=141–145}}{{sfn|McIntosh|2008|pp=275–277, 292}} The funerary practices of the Harappan civilisation are marked by their diversity, with evidence of supine burial,^[109] fractional burial (in which the body is reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements before final interment), and even cremation.{{sfn|Possehl|2002|pp=152, 157–176}}{{sfn|McIntosh|2008|pp=293–299}}

Late Harappan

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.^[110]^[111]

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."^[112]

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.^[113]^[114]^[115] Other sites associated with the Late phase of the Harappan culture are Pirak in Balochistan, Pakistan, and Daimabad in Maharashtra, India.^[59]

The largest Late Harappan sites are Kudwala in Cholistan, 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.^[116] 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.^[117]

The pottery of the Late Harappan period is described as "showing some continuity with mature Harappan pottery traditions," but also distinctive differences.^[118] 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.^[118] 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.^[119] 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.^[120]

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."^[121] 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.^[117]^[122]

"Aryan invasion"

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.^[123]

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.^[124]^[125] 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.{{sfn|Mallory|Adams|1997|pp=102–103}}

Climate change and drought

Suggested contributory causes for the localisation of the IVC include changes in the course of the river,^[126] and climate change that is also signalled for the neighbouring areas of the Middle East.^[127]^[128] {{As of| 2016}} many scholars believe that drought, and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia, caused the collapse of the Indus Civilisation.^[129] 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.^[130]

The Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed,{{refn|group=note|name="Giosan"}}^[154]{{refn|group=note|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.^[131]}}^[156]{{refn|group=note|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.^[132]}} 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. The Indian monsoon declined and aridity increased, with the Ghaggar-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills of the Himalaya,^[133]^[134] 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 to scatter its population eastward.^[135]^[136]^[137]{{refn|group=note|name="Note-Brooke"|Broke:^[137] "The story in Harappan India was somewhat different (see Figure 111.3). The Bronze Age village and urban societies of the Indus Valley are some-thing 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 the Punjab and the Ganges Valley....'
17 (footnote):
a) {{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}}
(b) Camilo Ponton, "Holocene Aridification of India," GRL 39 (2012), L03704;
(c) Harunur Rashid et al., "Late Glacial to Holocene Indian Summer Monsoon Variability Based upon Sediment Records Taken from the Bay of Bengal," Terrestrial, Atmospheric, and Oceanic Sciences 22 (2011), 215–28;
(d) Marco Madella and Dorian Q. Fuller, "Paleoecology and the Harappan Civilization of South Asia: A Reconsideration," Quaternary Science Reviews 25 (2006), 1283–301. Compare with the very different interpretations in {{citation|last=Possehl|first=Gregory L.|title=The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pmAuAsi4ePIC&pg=PA239|year=2002|pages=237–245|publisher=Rowman Altamira|isbn=978-0-7591-0172-2}}, and Michael Staubwasser et al., "Climate Change at the 4.2 ka BP Termination of the Indus Valley Civilization and Holocene South Asian Monsoon Variability," GRL 30 (2003), 1425. Bar-Matthews and Avner Ayalon, "Mid-Holocene Climate Variations."}} 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 development of trade, and the cities died out.^[138]^[139]

Earthquakes

There are archaeological evidences of major earthquakes at Dholavira in 2200 BCE as well as at Kalibangan in 2700 and 2900 BCE. Such succession of earthquakes, along with drought, may have contributed to decline of Ghaggar-Harka system. Sea level changes are also found at two possible seaport sites along the Makran coast which are now inland. Earthquakes may have contributed to decline of several sites by direct shaking damage, by sea level change or by change in water supply.^[140]^[141]^[142]

Continuity

Archaeological excavations indicate that the decline of Harappa drove people eastward.^[143] 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."^[129]{{refn|group=note|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.^[144]}} 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".^[174]

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.^[59]

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".^[145]

Post-Harappan

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.^[146]

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.

Historical context

Near East

The mature (Harappan) phase of the IVC is contemporary to the Early and Middle Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East, in particular the Old Elamite period, Early Dynastic, the Akkadian Empire to Ur III Mesopotamia, Prepalatial Minoan Crete and Old Kingdom to First Intermediate Period Egypt.

The IVC has been compared in particular with the civilisations of Elam (also in the context of the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis) and with Minoan Crete (because of isolated cultural parallels such as the ubiquitous goddess worship and depictions of bull-leaping).^[152] The IVC has been tentatively identified with the toponym Meluhha known from Sumerian records; the Sumerians called them Meluhhaites.^[153]

Dasyu

After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated with the indigenous Dasyu inimical to the Rigvedic tribes in numerous hymns of the Rigveda. Mortimer Wheeler interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the top levels of Mohenjo-daro as the victims of a warlike conquest, and famously stated that "Indra stands accused" of the destruction of the IVC. The association of the IVC with the city-dwelling Dasyus remains alluring because the assumed timeframe of the first Indo-Aryan migration into India corresponds neatly with the period of decline of the IVC seen in the archaeological record. The discovery of the advanced, urban IVC however changed the 19th-century view of early Indo-Aryan migration as an "invasion" of an advanced culture at the expense of a "primitive" aboriginal population to a gradual acculturation of nomadic "barbarians" on an advanced urban civilisation, comparable to the Germanic migrations after the Fall of Rome, or the Kassite invasion of Babylonia. This move away from simplistic "invasionist" scenarios parallels similar developments in thinking about language transfer and population movement in general, such as in the case of the migration of the proto-Greek speakers into Greece, or the Indo-Europeanisation of Western Europe.

Munda

See also

Notes

1. ^¹{{Harvnb|Shaffer|1992|loc=I:441–464, II:425–446.}}
2. ^{{cite web|url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/we-are-all-harappans/300463|title=We Are All Harappans Outlook India}}
3. ^{{cite book|author=Ratnagar, Shereen|authorlink=Shereen Ratnagar|year=2006|title=Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=India|isbn=978-0-19-566603-8|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5tpQgAACAAJ|page=25}}
4. ^{{cite book|author=Lockard, Craig|year=2010|title=Societies, Networks, and Transitions, Volume 1: To 1500|publisher=Cengage Learning|location=India|isbn=978-1-4390-8535-6|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Societies_Networks_and_Transitions.html?id=u4VOYN0dmqMC|page=40}}
5. ^{{cite book|author=Charles Keith Maisels|title=Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, The Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China|year=2003|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-83731-1|page=184|chapter=The Indus/'Harappan'/Sarasvati Civilization}}
6. ^{{cite book|author1=Denise Cush|author2=Catherine A. Robinson|author3=Michael York|title=Encyclopedia of Hinduism|year=2008|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-7007-1267-0|page=766}}
7. ^¹²³⁴⁵{{cite book|last=Singh|first=Upinder|title=A History of Ancient and Early medieval India : from the Stone Age to the 12th century|year=2008|publisher=Pearson Education|location=New Delhi|isbn=978-81-317-1120-0|page=137|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&dq=Upinder+Singh&q=malvan#v=snippet&q=malvan&f=false}}
8. ^{{cite journal|last=Dales|first=George F.|year=1962|title=Harappan Outposts on the Makran Coast|journal=Antiquity|volume=36|issue=142|page=86}}
9. ^{{cite book|first=Shikaripura Ranganatha|last=Rao|authorlink=Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao|year=1973|title=Lothal and the Indus civilization|location=London|publisher=Asia Publishing House|isbn=978-0-210-22278-2}}
10. ^{{Harvnb|Kenoyer|1998|p=96}}
11. ^{{cite journal|last=Dani|first=Ahmad Hassan|year=1970–1971|title=Excavations in the Gomal Valley|journal=Ancient Pakistan|issue=5|pages=1–177|authorlink=Ahmad Hasan Dani}}
12. ^{{cite book|title=Harappan Civilization: A recent perspective|last=Joshi|first=J.P.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1982|location=New Delhi|pages=185–195|chapter=Manda: A Harappan site in Jammu and Kashmir|author2=Bala, M.|editor=Possehl Gregory L.}}
13. ^{{Cite book|title=Indian Archaeology, A Review (1958–1959)|publisher=Archaeol. Surv. India|editor=A. Ghosh|location=Delhi|pages=51–52|chapter=Excavations at Alamgirpur}}
14. ^{{cite book|last=Ray|first=Himanshu Prabha|year=2003|title=The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-01109-9|page=95}}
15. ^{{cite book|title=South Asian Archaeology 1977|last=Dales|first=George F.|publisher=Seminario di Studi Asiatici Series Minor 6. Instituto Universitario Orientate|year=1979|location=Naples|pages=241–274|chapter=The Balakot Project: summary of four years excavations in Pakistan|editor=Maurizio Taddei}}
16. ^{{cite book|title=History and Archaeology|last=Bisht|first=R.S.|publisher=Ramanand Vidya Bhawan|year=1989|isbn=978-81-85205-46-5|location=New Delhi|pages=379–408|chapter=A new model of the Harappan town planning as revealed at Dholavira in Kutch: a surface study of its plan and architecture|editor=Chatterjee Bhaskar}}
17. ^Alexander Cunningham (1875). [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.547220 Archaeological Survey of India, Report for the Year 1872–73] (Vol. 5): [https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.547220/2015.547220.Archaeological-Surbey#page/n115/mode/2up 105]–8 and pl. 32-3. Calcutta: Archaeological Survey of India.
18. ^¹{{citation|last=Guha|first=Sudeshna|journal=Modern Asian Studies|title=Negotiating Evidence: History, Archaeology and the Indus Civilisation|volume=39|issue=2|year=2005|pages= 399–426, 419|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/txt_guha_indus.pdf}}
19. ^{{citation|last=Gilbert|first=Marc Jason|title=South Asia in World History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7OQWDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA6|year=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-976034-3|page=6|postscript=:Quote: "Immediately after the discovery of Harappan cities on the Indian side of the border, some nationalist-minded Indians began to speculate that the Ghaggar-Hakra riverbed may have more sites than neighboring Pakistan's Indus Valley. ... Such claims may prove to be valid, but modern nationalist arguments complicate the task of South Asian archaeologists who must deal with the poor condition of Harappan sites. The high water table means the oldest sites are under water or waterlogged and difficult to access."}}
20. ^¹{{citation|last=Possehl|first=Gregory L.|editor1=Morrison, Kathleen D. |editor2=Junker, Laura L. |title=Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia: Long-Term Histories|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6IAUKE7xv_cC&pg=PA62|year=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-01636-0|pages=62–76|chapter=Harappans and hunters: economic interaction and specialization in prehistoric India}} Quote: "There are 1,056 Mature Harappan sites that have been reported of which 96 have been excavated."
21. ^{{citation|last=Singh|first=Upinder|title=A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&pg=PA137|year=2008|publisher=Pearson Education India|isbn=978-81-317-1120-0|page=137}} Quote " 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."
22. ^¹{{citation|last1=Coningham|first1=Robin|last2=Young|first2=Ruth|title=The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yaJrCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA192|year=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-316-41898-7|page=192}} Quote: "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."
23. ^{{cite book|last=Ratnagar|first=Shereen|year=2006|title=Understanding Harappa: Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley|location=New Delhi|publisher=Tulika Books|isbn=978-81-89487-02-7|ref=Shereen-2006b|pages=7–8}} Quote: If in an ancient mound we find only one pot and two bead necklaces similar to those of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, with the bulk of pottery, tools and ornaments of a different type altogether, we cannot call that site Harappan. It is instead a site with Harappan contacts....Where the Sarasvati valley sites are concerned, we find that many of them are sites of local culture (with distinctive pottery, clay bangles, terracotta beads and grinding stones), some of them showing Harappan contact, and comparatively few are full-fledged Mature Harappan sites."
24. ^{{citation|last=Michon|first=Daniel|title=Archaeology and Religion in Early Northwest India: History, Theory, Practice|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=675cCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT44|year=2015|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-32457-7|pages=44–}} Quote: "After Partition, the archaeological work on the early historic period in India and Pakistan developed differently. In India, while the colonial administrative structure remained intact, the ASI made a concerted effort to Indianise' the field. The early historic period was understood as an important chapter in the long, unified history of the Indian subcontinent, and this understanding supported Indian goals of national unity. In Pakistan, however, the project of nation building was focused more on promoting the rich Islamic archaeological heritage within its borders, and most early historic sites, therefore, were left to the spades of foreign missions."
25. ^¹²{{cite journal|last=Chandler|first=Graham|date=September–October 1999|title=Traders of the Plain|url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199905/traders.of.the.plain.htm|journal=Saudi Aramco World|pages=34–42|access-date=11 February 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070218235318/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199905/traders.of.the.plain.htm|archive-date=18 February 2007|dead-url=yes|df=dmy-all}}
26. ^K. McElreavy and L. Quintana-Murci (2005), A population genetics perspective of the Indus Valley through uniparentally-inherited markers
27. ^{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4882968.stm|title=Stone age man used dentist drill}}
28. ^UNESCO World Heritage. 2004. . Archaeological Site of Mehrgarh
29. ^Hirst, K. Kris. 2005. "Mehrgarh". Guide to Archaeology
30. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/121116/indus-civilization-2000-years-old-archaeologists|title=Archeologists confirm Indian civilization is 2000 years older than previously believed, Jason Overdorf, Globalpost, 28 November 2012}}
31. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/indus-valley-2-000-years-older-than-thought/article1-954601.aspx|title=Indus Valley 2,000 years older than thought|date=2012-11-04}}
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147. ^¹{{cite book|last= Shaffer|first= Jim|year= 1993|chapter= Reurbanization: The eastern Punjab and beyond|title= Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia: The Shaping of Cities from Prehistoric to Precolonial Times|editor= Spodek, Howard |editor2=Srinivasan, Doris M.}}
148. ^{{cite web |title=Cylinder Seal of Ibni-Sharrum |url=https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/cylinder-seal-ibni-sharrum |website=Louvre Museum}}
149. ^{{cite web |title=Site officiel du musée du Louvre |url=http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=12067 |website=cartelfr.louvre.fr}}
150. ^{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Brian A. |last2=Feldman |first2=Marian H. |title=Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art |date=2013 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=9781614510352 |page=187 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4DoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA187 |language=en}}
151. ^{{cite web |title=Cylinder seal carved with an elongated buffalo and a Harappan inscription |url=https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/cylinder-seal-carved-elongated-buffalo-and-harappan-inscription |website=Louvre Museum}}
152. ^{{cite book|first=H.|last=Mode|title=Indische Frühkulturen und ihre Beziehungen zum Westen|location=Basel|year=1944}}
153. ^John Haywood, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations, Penguin Books, London, 2005, p. 76
154. ^{{cite book|title=Iran Almanac and Book of Facts|publisher=Echo Institute|page=59|quote=city of Shahr-e-Sukhteh near the Afghanistan border, an area which has been aptly [...] point on the trade routes between the Indus Valley, the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia}}
155. ^¹{{cite book|title=Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East|page=49|url=https://books.google.com/?id=JTvRCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&dq=Shahr-i-Sokhta+indus+valley|first=Amanda H.|last=Podany|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-19-971829-0}}
156. ^{{cite book|title=Legacy of Dilmun: The Roots of Ancient Maritime Trade in Eastern Coastal Arabia in the 4th/3rd Millennium B.C.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VfrQAAAAMAAJ|first=Constance Maria|last=Piesinger|publisher=University of Wisconsin|page=668|quote=Rare finds of square seals with Indus script have been found in Mesopotamia|year=1983}}
157. ^{{cite book|title=Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8l9X_3rHFdEC&pg=PA246|quote=Square-shaped Indus seals of fired steatite have been found at a few sites in Mesopotamia.|author1=Joan Aruz|author2=Ronald Wallenfels|page=246|isbn=978-1-58839-043-1|year=2003}}
158. ^{{Cite journal|last=Witzel |first=Michael |year=1999 |title=Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan ({{IAST|Ṛgvedic}}, Middle and Late Vedic) |url=http://ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf |journal=Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies |volume=5 |issue=1 |authorlink=Michael E. J. Witzel |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305014326/http://ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf |archivedate=5 March 2016 }}
159. ^{{Cite journal|journal=Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies|authorlink=Michael Witzel|last=Witzel|first=Michael|title=The Languages of Harappa|date=February 2000|url=http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/IndusLang.pdf|ref=harv}}