INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION ACHIEVEMENTS

 They evolved a system of writing: They used more than four

hundred signs to represent syllables and words.
 They evolved urbanization: This society produced major urban
centres.
 Construction skills: They had remarkable town planning and
construction skill. The towns were surrounded by high and thick
brick walls. The towns’ streets were laid out in a grid pattern.
 Waste management: They had waste management programmes
where upon they covered drainpipes carried away waste.
 Advanced storage facilities: They had advanced storage facilities
characterized by well-ventilated structures that was store houses
of grain for feeding the urban population and for export.
 Trade: They engaged in trade within the Indus valley and
throughout the neighbouring region. Indus valley merchants
served as middlemen in the long-distance trade obtaining raw
materials from the lands of west-central Asia and shipping them to
the Persian Gulf.
 Irrigation: The Indus valley people had impressive irrigation skills
where they made use of canals and the potter’s wheel.
 Architecture: They had advanced architectural capabilities. They
laid the foundations of large public buildings with mud bricks
baked in a kiln because sun-dried bricks exposed to floodwaters
would have dissolved quickly.
 Iron smelting technologies: They had iron smelting technologies
where smiths worked with various metals to produce various
implements. They were acutely aware of the hardness of different
mixtures and conserved the relatively rare tin by using the
smallest amount necessary, since for example, knives need not be
as hard as axes.
 Water transport: They harnessed rivers for transportation
purposes as rivers became major through ways for the movement
of goods and people.

Collapse of the Indus valley civilization

 The Indus valley suffered systems failure i.e. the breakdown of the
fragile inter-relationship of the political, social, and economic
systems that sustain order and prosperity.
 The precipitating cause may have been one or more natural
disasters, such as an earthquake or massive flooding.
 The valley could have lost its towns and ports and fertile soil and
water thus necessitating the relocation of large numbers of people.
 Urban centres could not be sustained and village-based farming
and herding took their place. As the interaction between region
lessened, distinct regional variations replaced the standardized
technology and style of the previous era.