humans are thought to have arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years

ago.[1] Settled life, which involves the transition from foraging to farming and pastoralism, began in
South Asia around 7,000 BCE; during this period, domestication of wheat and barley, rapidly followed by
that of goats, sheep, and cattle occurred.[2] By 4,500 BCE, settled In the beginning of the second
millennium BCE climate change, with persistent drought, led to the abandonment of the urban centers
of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Its population resettled in smaller villages, and, in the north-west, mixed
with Indo-Aryan tribes, who moved into the area in several waves of Aryan migration, also driven by the
effects of this climate change. The Vedic period was marked by the composition of the Vedas, large
collections of hymns of some of the Aryan tribes, whose postulated religious culture, through synthesis
with the preexisting religious cultures of the subcontinent, gave rise to Hinduism. The era saw the
eventual emergence of Janapadas (monarchical, state-level polities), and social stratification based on
caste, which created a hierarchy of priests (Brahmins), warriors (Kshatriyas), merchants (Vaishyas) and
laborers (Shudras). The Later Vedic Civilisation extended over the Indo-Gangetic plain and much of the
Indian subcontinent, as well as witnessed the rise of major polities known as the Mahajanapadas (large,
urbanised states). In one of these kingdoms, Magadha, Gautama Buddha and Mahavira propagated their
Śramaṇic philosophies during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE. Anatomically modern humans are
thought to have arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago.[1] Settled
life, which involves the transition from foraging to farming and pastoralism, began in South Asia around
7,000 BCE; during this period, domestication of wheat and barley, rapidly followed by that of goats,
sheep, and cattle occurred.[2] By 4,500 BCE, settled life had become more widely prevalent,[2] and
eventually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilization. Considered a cradle of civilisation,[3] the Indus
Valley civilisation, which spread and flourished in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent
from 3300 to 1300 BCE, was the first major civilisation in South Asia.[4] A sophisticated and
technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900
BCE.[5] Indus Valley Civilisation was noted for developing new techniques in handicraft, carnelian
products, seal carving, metallurgy, urban planning, baked brick houses, efficient drainage systems, water
supply systems and clusters of large non-residential buildings.[6] This civilisation collapsed at the start of
the second millennium BCE and was later followed by the Iron Age Vedic Civilisation.