INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION 3000 -1500 BCE

ARYAN SETTLEMENT 1500-1000 BCE

DURING THE HALF A MILLENNIUM PERIOD AFTER 1000-500 BCE

FURTHER ARYAN MIGRATIONS EASTWARD
ARYAN AFFLIATION WITH ACHAEMENIAN EMPIRE 500-325 BCE

INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

“The history of Pakistan can be dated back to Indus Valley Civilization” quoted by British
Archaeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler in his work ‘five thousand years of Pakistan’.

Six different stages shown in Table 1 is generally accepted show the historical ages and
development of each civilization with time.

Table 1: The Chronology of Indus Valley Civilization (development of IVC)

Stage 1: 7000-4000 BCE Beginnings of village farming communities

Stage 2: 4300-3200 BCE Developed farming and pastoral communities

Stage 3: 3200-2600 BCE Agricultural surplus societies, urbanization

Stage 4: 2600-2500 BCE The big leap. Advanced town-planning and scripts
emerge
Stage 5: 2500-2000 BCE Civilization in full bloom

Stage 6: 2000-1600 BCE Dramatic decline in Sindh and resurgence in Punjab and
Haryana. Back to the Farming Units

1) HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

 The Indus Valley Civilization started in South Asia in at 7000 BCE -3200 BCE).
 The earliest evidence of human civilization in South Asia is from the Mehrgarh region
(7000 BC to 3200 BC) of Pakistan, located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus
River valley and between the present-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi.
 MERGARH:
a. Mehrgarh was discovered in 1974 by an archaeological team directed by French
archaeologist Jean-François, and was excavated continuously between 1974 and 1986.
b. The earliest settlement at Mehrgarh—in the northeast corner of the 495 acres site—was
a small farming village dated between 7000 BC–5500 BC.
c. Mehrgarh is now seen as a precursor to the Indus Valley Civilization.

 INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION:

a. One of the world's oldest urban civilizations (3300– 1300 BCE), in the northwestern
region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly present-day Pakistan
and northwest India.
b. The civilization spread across the Indus River basin over 500,000 square miles, making it
the largest known ancient civilization
c. Have had a population of five million people
d. The Indus Valley Civilization (also known as Harappan culture) has two greatest cities,
Mohenjo-daro (“mound of the dead”) and Harappa (archeological site in Punjab),
emerged circa 2600 BCE along the Indus River valley in Punjab and Sindh.
e. Indus Valley civilization was mainly an urban culture sustained by surplus agricultural
production and commerce, the latter including trade with Mesopotamia.
f. Both Mohen-jo-daro and Harappa are generally characterized as having "differentiated
living quarters, flat-roofed brick houses, and fortified administrative or religious centers.

 HARAPPA

a. The first extensive excavations at Harappa were started by Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni
in 1920.
b. There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in
the same area of the Harappan Civilization.
c. The Harappan civilization is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to
distinguish it from these cultures.
d. Up to 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements have been found, out of which 96 have
been excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river and
its tributaries.
e. Among the settlements are the major urban centers of Harappa, Lothal, Mohenjo-daro,
Dholavira, Kalibanga, and Rakhigarhi
 MOEN-JO-DARO

a. Built in 26 century BCE

b. In 1930s, major excavation-under the leadership of John Marshall
c. City was built with fired and mortared bricks
d. City divided in two parts: a) Citadel b) lower city
e. Other features: Public baths, assembly halls, market place, smaller wells/ private wells,
proper drainage system, ‘great bath”, granary, etc.

2) INDUS VALLEY SCRIPT

 Also called Harappan script, refers to short strings of symbols associated with IVC.
 Writing system: pictorial
 Derived Dravidian language (often presumed that Dravidians were the creators of
IVC)

3) ARTS AND CRAFTS

 In Indus Valley Civilization, various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and
anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found
at excavation sites.
 Many crafts "such as shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite bead
making" were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments from
all phases of Harappan sites.

4) INDUS VALLEY RELIGION

 Some Indus valley seals show “Swastikas”, which are found in other religions worldwide,
especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

5) INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION LANGUAGE

 The Indus script appears to have been developed indigenously and was not borrowed
from West Asia.
 Scholars have defined between 400 and 450 distinct Indus script signs or graphemes.
 Most scholars agree that the writing is based on a logo-syllabic system in which each
sign means a word, a syllable, or a sound. However, some signs appear to represent
pictographs (of a man or a fish, and so on) and when used alone they might represent
an idea or an entire story.
 The use of ideographs with a logo-syllabic writing system suggests that there were many
different ways of using the writing.
6) LATE HARAPPA AND ITS DECLINE
 Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE,
most of the cities were abandoned. It was assumed that the decline of the Indus
Civilization was caused by the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central Asia
called the "Aryans".
 It has also been suggested that immigration by new peoples, deforestation, floods, or
changes in the course of the river may have contributed to the collapse of the Indus
Valley Civilization.