THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS IN INDIA
Early human remains dating from between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago have been found in the Narmada Valley in the Deccan Plateau, but there is no evidence of permanent fixed settlements in India before about 9,000 years ago.
Around 7,000 years ago, a people who farmed a primitive form of wheat lived in the Indus Valley (in what is now Pakistan), and after 3000 to 2800 BCE, a major civilization, one of the four great urban civilizations of the ancient world, developed in the Indus Valley. While contemporary written records were discovered at sites of the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), and China, giving historians a wealth of information, the Harappan or Indus Valley civilization left few written records, which have so far been only tentatively deciphered. The original names of the Harappan towns and cities are unknown, and there is no record of the Harappans’ religion and social structure, or the names of their rulers. The origins of the Harappan civilization have not been discovered, and the causes of its eventual collapse remain open to debate.
THE HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION IN INDIA
The earliest discoveries of Harappan sites were made by British archaeologists in 1921. The remains of an ancient city were discovered beneath mounds along a bend of the Ravi river at Harappa, in Punjab (at a site now in Pakistan). The following year, the larger city of Mohenjo Daro (literally, "mound of the dead") was discovered 400 miles (about 645 km) to the southwest along the Indus river, also now in Pakistan. The dates of the major settlements that have been excavated suggest that the Harappan civilization spread from west to east, into what is now Indian territory. The first towns probably developed before 3000 BCE in the Indus Valley and may have evolved from farming communities. There is substantial evidence of irrigation systems that are similar to those used by the Mesopotamians, and consequently, some historians have proposed that the irrigation technology may have come from Mesopotamia.
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Rakhigarhi |
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The Harappan city of Rakhigarhi, in the modern Indian state of Haryana, may date back to 3500 BCE. The city, the largest Harappan site so far discovered in India, may have had as many as 50,000 inhabitants. The site, now in a dry region, has revealed many artifacts, including fishhooks, which suggest that a water-way flowed through the region in Harappan times. There is archaeological evidence that the inhabitants of the city raised cattle and other domesticated animals. Rakhigarhi lies close to other major Harappan sites across the border in Pakistan and belongs to the northern phase of the Indus Valley settlements, which were abandoned long before the Harappan cities of Gujarat and the Indian coast were deserted.
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HARAPPAN CITIES
The cities of the Harappan civilization had straight streets, with a remarkable similarity of planning in over one hundred sites in India and Pakistan. The cities had pools that are usually identified as baths, well-fortified citadels, and buildings that are thought to have been granaries. From the artifacts and structures uncovered by archaeologists, it is known that the inhabitants of Harappan cities practiced irrigation, raised animals, made bead jewelry, and smelted copper. Although the two largest and most famous sites, Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, are now in Pakistan, some of the most extensively excavated sites, including the important Harappan port of Lothal, are in Gujarat, India.
LOTHAL
Lothal grew along a sheltered harbor, and its plan followed the classic Harappan pattern, with a citadel and a lower town of straight streets. In the citadel, houses were constructed on platforms nearly 10 feet (3 m) high, and they had wells, baths, sewage systems, and drains. The lower town was in two sections, one of which has been interpreted as a commercial quarter with an area usually identified as a bazaar; the other sector is thought to have been a residential district. The city owed its existence to its port, and the dock at Lothal is the earliest known in the world. The dock, to the east of the city, was situated in a position to avoid silting on the Gulf of Khambhat (formerly known as Cambay) and also to be accessible to shipping at high tide. However, because the structure is small, some historians and archaeologists have suggested that the feature usually identified as the dock may have been a large water storage tank.
A large warehouse near the citadel stored cargo, and the port is known to have traded beads, shells, and various valuable items with Mesopotamia, other areas of western Asia, and Egypt by sea. The city became prosperous because of its foreign trade and developed a number of industries, including bead making using local materials, and produced a range of metal items, such as fishhooks, tools, spears, and ornaments that were made from imported copper. The Lothal district has yielded the largest number of finds from before the common era from any archaeological site in India.
DHOLAVIRA AND SURKOTADA
In the later period of the Harappan civilization, a number of cities developed in what is now Gujarat. Sometimes known as the Rangpur phase of Harappan civilization, after around 2300 to 2000 BCE, the culture was characterized by the production of lustrous red pottery, considerable quantities of which have been found at Indian Harappan sites.
A number of Rangpur phase sites have been excavated in Gujarat, the most important of which are Dholavira and Surkotada. However, it is not known what relationship these cities had with the large Harappan cities of the Indus Valley.
Dholavira is one of the largest Harappan cities, measuring about 2,540 feet (775 m) by nearly 2,000 feet (600 m). Built on a sloping terrain between two seasonal storm-water channels, with dams and channels to direct the water into huge reservoirs, Dholavira comprises three sectors. A fortified citadel, surrounded by high walls, rises 53 feet (16 m) above an area known as the middle town. The middle town rises, in turn, above the larger so-called lower town, which has been interpreted as a residential area. The site, which occupies an island in the marshes of Kachchh (formerly Kutch), has yielded considerable amounts of (undeciphered) Harappan script, including ten large tablets. Surkotada, which dates from around 2300 BCE, also has the typical Harappan plan of a citadel alongside larger residential and commercial areas. There is evidence of baths, drainage systems, farming activities, and trade.
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The Pre-Harappan City of the Gulf of Khambhat |
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In 2002, initial archaeological surveys of a submarine site in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) in northwest India dated a newly discovered settlement to before Harappan times. The site, discovered by scientists working for India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), is some 120 feet (36 m) below the sea around 30 miles (48 km) west of the city of Surat. A sonar scan used by NIOT scientists revealed huge geometrical structures. Analysis of material from the site, including beads, pottery, sculpture, and human bones, gave a provisional date of around 9,500 years ago. If the dates prove accurate, the submarine pre-Harappan city is older than the first large cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The region is known to have been inundated by the sea around 6900 BCE.
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THE DECLINE OF THE HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION
The Harappan cities in the Indus Valley flourished between 2500 and 1700 BCE, after which decline began, possibly associated with climate change. A number of Harappan cities lay along the presumed valley of the Sarasvati river, which ceased to flow in the second millennium BCE. Aridity was believed to be a factor in the end of Harappan cities; invasion may also have played a role, and it is known that Mohenjo Daro was overrun after 1700 BCE. However, Harappan cities in Gujarat lasted long after the abandonment of those whose sites are now in Pakistan. Lothal, for example, was probably inhabited until after 1000 BCE.
P. FERGUSSON
