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Indus Valley Civilization

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Ancient History,
Classical History and Mythology

             History of South Asia
   History of India
   Stone Age                 70,000–7000 BC
   Mehrgarh Culture          7000–3300 BCE
   Indus Valley Civilization 3300–1700 BCE
   Late Harappan Culture     1700–1300 BCE
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   The Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1300 BC, flowered 2600–1900 BC)
   was a civilization thriving along the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra
   River in what is now Pakistan and north-western India. Among other
   names for this civilization is the Harappan Civilization, in reference
   to its first excavated city of Harappa.

   The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was discovered in the 1920s and is
   known only from archaeological excavations, except, possibly, for
   Sumerian references to Meluhha, which has been proposed to correspond
   to the IVC.

   An alternative term for the culture is Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization,
   based on the popular identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with the
   Sarasvati River.

   The IVC is a candidate for the locus of Proto-Dravidian.

Discovery and excavation

   The ruins of Harappa were first described by Charles Masson in his
   Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and Punjab,
   1826-1838, but its significance was not realized until much later. In
   1857, the British authorities used Harappan bricks in the construction
   of the East Indian Railway line connecting Karachi and Lahore. In 1912,
   Harappan seals with then unknown symbols were discovered by J. Fleet,
   which triggered an excavation campaign under Sir John Marshall in
   1921/22, resulting in the discovery of a hitherto unknown civilization
   by Dayaram Sahni. By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro was excavated, but
   minor campaigns continued, such as that led by Mortimer Wheeler in
   1950. Following the partition of British India in 1947, the area of the
   IVC was divided between Pakistan and the Republic of India. Influential
   in the field were British archaeologist Aurel Stein, Indian
   archaeologist Nani Gopal Majumdar and German archaeologist Michael
   Jansen.

Periodisation

   The Harappan Civilization proper lasts from ca. 2600–1900 BCE.
   Including its predecessor and successor cultures, Early Harappan and
   Late Harappan, the Indus Valley Civilization may be taken to have
   lasted from roughly the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. There are two
   terminologies for the periodization of the IVC, periodization into Eras
   or Phases. The Early Harappan, Harappan and Late Harappan periods are
   described as "Regionalisation", "Integration" and "Localisation" Eras,
   respectively, the Regionalization Era taken to reach down to the
   Neolithic Mehrgarh II period:
   Date range Phase Era
   5500-3300 Mehrgarh II-VI Regionalisation Era
   3300-2600 Early Harappan
   3300-2800 Harappan 1 (Ravi Phase)
   2800-2600 Harappan 2 (Kot Diji Phase, Nausharo I, Mehrgarh VII)
   2600-1900 Mature Harappan Integration Era
   2600-2450 Harappan 3A (Nausharo II)
   2450-2200 Harappan 3B
   2200-1900 Harappan 3C
   1900-1300 Late Harappan ( Cemetery H) Localisation Era
   1900-1700 Harappan 4
   1700-1300 Harappan 5

Predecessors

   The Indus Civilization was predated by the first farming cultures in
   South Asia, which emerged in the hills of what is now called
   Balochistan, to the west of the Indus Valley. North Eastern Balochistan
   is connected to Afghanistan by passes over the Toba Kakar Range.
   Valleys on the Makran coast are open towards the Arabian Sea. Through
   these routes Balochistan was in contact with West Asia and took part in
   the so-called Neolithic Revolution, which took place in the Fertile
   Crescent around 9000 to 6000 BCE. The earliest evidence of sedentary
   lifestyle in South Asia was discovered at Mehrgarh in the foothills of
   the Brahui Hills. This settlement is dated 7000 BCE and was located on
   the west bank of the Bolan River, about 30 kilometres from the town of
   Sibi. These early farmers domesticated wheat and a variety of animals,
   including cattle. In the "Era" terminology, the aceramic Neolithic is
   known as the "Early Food Producing Era".

   Pottery was in use by around 5500 BCE, taken to initiate the
   "Regionalisation Era". It has been surmised that the inhabitants of
   Mehrgarh migrated to the fertile Indus river valley as Balochistan
   became arid due to climatic changes. The Indus Civilisation grew out of
   this culture's technological base, as well as its geographic expansion
   into the alluvial plains of what are now the provinces of Sindh and
   Punjab in contemporary Pakistan and Northern India. By 4000 BCE farming
   communities spread further east to other parts of Balochistan and Lower
   Sind (Pakistan). Later this culture spread to Upper Sindh, Punjab and
   the western states of India.

Early Harappan

   The development of these farming communities ultimately led to the
   accretion of larger settlements from the later 4th millennium.

   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 near Mohenjo Daro. Some of the most important
   discoveries in the Ravi Phase relate to writing. The earliest examples
   of the Indus script date from around 3000 BC, placing the origins of
   writing in South Asia at approximately the same time as those of
   Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

   The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman
   Dheri and Amri. Kot Diji (Harappan 2) 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.

   This distinctive, regional culture which emerged is called Early or
   Pre-Harappan. Trade networks linked this culture with related regional
   cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli
   and other materials for bead-making. Villagers had, by this time,
   domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates and
   cotton, as well as a wide range of domestic animals, including the
   water buffalo.

Mature Harappan

   By 2500 BCE, the Early Harappan communities had been turned into urban
   centers. Thus far, six such urban centers have been discovered,
   including: Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Dicki in Pakistan, along with
   Gonorreala, Dokalingam and Mangalore in India. In total, over 1052
   cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of
   the Ghaggar-Florence River and its tributaries.

   By 2500 BCE, irrigation had transformed the region.

Late Harappan

   Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by
   around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. However, the Indus
   Valley Civilisation did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of
   the Indus Civilization can be found in later cultures. Current
   archaeological data suggests that material culture classified as Late
   Harappan may have persisted until at least c. 1000-900 BCE, and was
   partially contemporaneous with the Painted Grey Ware and perhaps early
   NBP cultures. Archaeologists have emphasised that there was a
   continuous series of cultural developments that link "the so-called two
   major phases of urbanisation in South Asia".
   Indus Valley Seals. The first one shows a Swastika
   Enlarge
   Indus Valley Seals. The first one shows a Swastika

   A possible natural reason for the IVC's decline is connected with
   climate change: The Indus valley climate grew significantly cooler and
   drier from about 1800 BCE. A crucial factor may have been the
   disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar Hakra river
   system. A tectonic event may have diverted the system's sources toward
   the Ganges Plain, though there is some uncertainty about the date of
   this event. Although this particular factor is speculative, and not
   generally accepted, the decline of the IVC, as with any other
   civilisation, will have been due to a combination of various reasons.

   The region lies on the ancient route used by successive waves of
   migrations from Aryans to Huns, and later by Turks and Mughals to South
   Asia over the passes in the Hindu Kush. The Swat culture of northern
   Pakistan is a likely candidate for the first settlements of Indo-Aryans
   in the subcontinent. It is in this context of the aftermath of a
   civilisation's collapse that the hypothesis of an Indo-Aryan migration
   into northern India is discussed. In the early twentieth century, this
   migration was forwarded in the guise of an " Aryan invasion", and when
   the civilization was discovered in the 1920s, its collapse at precisely
   the time of the conjectured invasion was seen as an independent
   confirmation. In the words of the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, the
   Indo-Aryan war god Indra "stands accused" of the destruction. It is
   however far from certain whether the collapse of the IVC is the result
   of an Indo-Aryan migration, if there was one. It seems rather likely
   that, on the contrary, the hypothesised Indo-Aryan migration was as a
   result of the collapse, comparable with the decline of the Roman Empire
   and the incursions of relatively primitive peoples during the
   Migrations Period. This makes it seem more likely that the adoption of
   Indo-Aryan languages was the result of cultural mixing and integration
   of the Cemetery H people (likely Dravidians) and Indo-Aryans rather
   than invasion.

Geography

   Extent and major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization (modern state
   boundaries shown in red). See [2] for a more detailed map.
   Enlarge
   Extent and major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization (modern state
   boundaries shown in red). See for a more detailed map.

   The Indus Valley Civilization extended from Balochistan to Gujarat,
   with an upward reach to Punjab from east of the river Jhelum to Rupar
   on the upper Sutlej. Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor in
   Western Baluchistan to Lothal in Gujarat. Besides the western states of
   India, the Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan. An
   Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus river at Shortughai in
   northern Afghanistan , at Sutkagen dor (Western Baluchistan, Pakistan),
   at Mandu on the Beas River near Jammu, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon
   River, only 28 km from Delhi . Indus Valley sites have been found most
   often on rivers, but also on lakes, the ancient sea-coast and on
   islands.

   There is some disputed evidence of another large river, now dried up,
   running parallel to the Indus River to the east. Dry river beds overlap
   with the Hakra channel in Pakistan and the seasonal Ghaggar River in
   India. Over 500 ancient sites belonging to the Indus Valley
   Civilization have been discovered along the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its
   tributaries (S.P. Gupta 1995: 183). By contrast, only about 100 of the
   known Indus Valley sites have been discovered on the Indus and its
   tributaries. Certain scholars propose that this was a major river
   during the third and fourth millennia BCE, and suggest that it may have
   been the Sarasvati River of the Rigveda. Some advocate designating the
   Indus Valley culture the "Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization," Sindhu being
   the ancient name of the Indus River. Most archeologists dispute this
   view, arguing that the old river disappeared during the Mesolithic age
   at the latest, and was only a seasonal stream during the Vedic period
   when the text was collected.

Cities

   A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident
   in the Indus Valley Civilization. The quality of municipal town
   planning suggests knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal
   governments which placed a high priority on hygiene. The streets of
   major cities such as Mohenjo-daro or Harappa were laid out in perfect
   grid patterns. The houses were protected from noise, odours, and
   thieves.

   As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently discovered
   Rakhigarhi, this urban plan included the world's first urban sanitation
   systems. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained
   water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for
   bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the
   major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller
   lanes.

   The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed
   and used in cities throughout the Indus Empire, were far more advanced
   than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even
   more efficient than those in some 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 citadels of Indus cities that protected the Harappans from
   floods and attackers were larger than most Mesopotamian ziggurats.

   The purpose of the citadel remains debated. In sharp contrast to this
   civilization'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, which may have been a public bath. Although the
   citadels were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were
   defensive. They may have been built to divert flood waters.

   Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived
   with others pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighborhoods.
   Materials from distant regions were used in the cities for constructing
   seals, beads and other objects. Among the artifacts discovered were
   beautiful beads of glazed stone called faïence. The seals have images
   of animals, gods and other types of inscriptions. Some of the seals
   were used to stamp clay on trade goods and most probably had other
   uses.

   Although some houses were larger than others, Indus Civilization cities
   were remarkable for their apparent egalitarianism. All the houses had
   access to water and drainage facilities. This gives the impression of a
   society with low wealth concentration.

Science

   The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in
   measuring length, mass and time. They were among the first to develop a
   system of uniform weights and measures. Their measurements were
   extremely precise. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory
   scale found in Lothal, 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.

   Brick sizes were in a perfect ratio of 4:2:1 and the decimal system was
   used. Weights were based on units of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10,
   20, 50, 100, 200, and 500, 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.

   The weights and measures of Kautilya's Arthashastra are the same as
   those used in Lothal.

   Unique Harappan inventions include an instrument which was used to
   measure whole sections of the horizon and the tidal dock. In addition,
   Harappans evolved new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper,
   bronze, lead and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans was
   remarkable, especially in building docks after a careful study of
   tides, waves and currents.

   In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh,
   Pakistan made the startling discovery that the people of the Indus
   Valley Civilisation, even from the early Harappan periods, had
   knowledge of dentistry. The physical anthropologist who carried out the
   examinations, Professor Andrea Cucina from the University of
   Missouri-Columbia, made the discovery while he was cleaning the teeth
   from one set of remains.

Arts and culture

   A statuette of a female figure.
   Enlarge
   A statuette of a female figure.

   Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry and anatomically
   detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze and steatite have been found
   at the excavation sites.

   A number of bronze, terracotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing
   poses reveal the presence of some dance form. Sir John Marshall is
   known to have reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze
   statuette of a slender-limbed "dancing girl" in Mohenjo-daro:

          "… When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that
          they were prehistoric; they seemed to completely upset all
          established ideas about early art. Modeling such as this was
          unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of
          Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely
          have been made; that these figures had found their way into
          levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly
          belonged. … Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical
          truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in
          this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have
          been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks
          of the Indus."

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

   Seals have been found at Mohenjo-daro depicting a figure standing on
   its head, and one sitting cross-legged; perhaps the earliest
   indication, at least illustration, of the practice of yoga. A horned
   figure in an advanced yogic pose (see image, Pashupati, below right)
   has been interpreted as one of the earliest depictions of the Lord
   Shiva.

Trade and transportation

   The Indus civilization's economy appears to have depended significantly
   on trade, which was facilitated by major advances in transport
   technology. These advances included bullock-driven 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 docking facility at the
   coastal city of Lothal.
   Computer-aided reconstruction of Harappan coastal settlement at Sokhta
   Koh near Pasni on the western-most outreaches of the civilization
   Enlarge
   Computer-aided reconstruction of Harappan coastal settlement at Sokhta
   Koh near Pasni on the western-most outreaches of the civilization

   Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilisation artifacts, the trade
   networks, economically, integrated a huge area, including portions of
   Afghanistan, the coastal regions of Persia, northern and central India,
   and Mesopotamia.

   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). Such
   long-distance sea-trade became feasible with the innovative development
   of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast
   supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.

   Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (Dasht River, north of
   Jiwani), Sokhta Koh (Shadi River, north of Pasni) and Balakot (near
   Sonmiani) in Pakistan alongwith Lothal in India testify to their role
   as Harappan trading outposts. Shallow harbours located at the estuary
   of rivers opening into the sea, allowed brisk maritime trade with
   Mesopotamian cities.

Agriculture

   The nature of the Indus Civilization's agricultural system is still
   largely a matter of conjecture due to the limited amount of information
   surviving through the ages. Some speculation is possible, however.

   Earlier studies (prior to 1980) often assumed that food production was
   imported to the Indus Valley by a single linguistic group ("Aryans")
   and/or from a single area. But recent studies indicate that food
   production was largely indigenous to the Indus Valley. Already the
   Mehrgarh people used domesticated wheats and barley and the major
   cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from
   two-row barley (see Shaffer and Liechtenstein 1995, 1999).
   Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site
   "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian
   phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the
   prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia
   as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments."

   Indus civilization agriculture must have been highly productive; after
   all, it was capable of generating surpluses sufficient to support tens
   of thousands of urban residents who were not primarily engaged in
   agriculture. It relied on the considerable technological achievements
   of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough. Still, very little
   is known about the farmers who supported the cities or their
   agricultural methods. Some of them undoubtedly made use of the fertile
   alluvial soil left by rivers after the flood season, but this simple
   method of agriculture is not thought to be productive enough to support
   cities. There is no evidence of irrigation, but such evidence could
   have been obliterated by repeated, catastrophic floods.

   The Indus civilisation appears to contradict the hydraulic despotism
   hypothesis of the origin of urban civilization and the state. According
   to this hypothesis, all early, large-scale civilizations arose as a
   by-product of irrigation systems capable of generating massive
   agricultural surpluses.

   It is often assumed that intensive agricultural production requires
   dams and canals. This assumption is easily refuted. Throughout Asia,
   rice farmers produce significant agricultural surpluses from terraced,
   hillside rice paddies, which result not from slavery but rather the
   accumulated labor of many generations of people. Instead of building
   canals, Indus civilization people may have built water diversion
   schemes, which—like terrace agriculture—can be elaborated by
   generations of small-scale labour investments. It should be noted that
   Indus Civilisation people built their lives around the monsoon, a
   weather pattern in which the bulk of a year's rainfall occurs in a
   four-month.

Writing or symbol system

   An Indus Valley seal with the seated figure termed pashupati.
   Enlarge
   An Indus Valley seal with the seated figure termed pashupati.

   Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols have been found on seals or
   ceramic pots and over 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 exquisitely 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 Civilization is often characterized as a
   "literate society" on the evidence of these inscriptions, this
   description has been challenged on linguistic and archaeological
   grounds: it has been pointed out that the brevity of the inscriptions
   is unparalleled in any known premodern literate society. Based partly
   on this evidence, a controversial paper by Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel
   (2004), argues that the Indus system did not encode language, but was
   related instead to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems used
   extensively in the Near East. It has also been 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 molds. No parallels to
   these mass-produced inscriptions are known in any other early ancient
   civilizations.

   Photos of many of the thousands of extant inscriptions are published in
   the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (1987, 1991), edited by A.
   Parpola and his colleagues. Publication of a final third volume, which
   will reportedly republish photos taken in the 20s and 30s of hundreds
   of lost or stolen inscriptions, along with many discovered in the last
   few decades, has been announced for several years, but has not yet
   found its way into print. For now, researchers must 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.

   In the course of the 2nd millennium BCE, remnants of the IVC's culture
   would (the so-called Cemetery H culture) amalgamated with that of other
   peoples, likely contributing to what eventually resulted in the rise of
   Vedic culture and eventually historical Hinduism. Judging from the
   abundant figurines, which may depict female fertility, that they left
   behind, IVC people worshipped a Mother goddess (compare Shakti and
   Kali). However, there is no firm agreement among experts as to whether
   or not these figurines actually depict female fertility, or if they
   depict something else. Also these people ate beef and buried their
   dead. IVC seals depict animals, perhaps as the objects of veneration,
   comparable to the zoomorphic aspects of some Hindu gods. Seals
   resembling Pashupati in a yogic posture have also been discovered.

   In the aftermath of the Indus Civilization's collapse, 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 until
   today.

   The late IVC is a likely candidate for a Proto-Dravidian culture, and
   the Brahui people of Pakistan and Balochistan are possibly a linguistic
   remnant that remained in the area.

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