Indus Valley Civilization

Indus Valley civilization is the first civilization of India. It was situated in the northwestern part of India. The civilization’s timeline has differences. But, the most accepted is from 2600-2500 BCE to 1900-1800 BCE. In 1853, A. Kaningham found the first evidence of the Harrapan civilization. It was a Harappan seal. Later Dayaram Sahani discovered the civilization in 1921.

It was first found at a site named Harappa. That’s why the civilization is also called the Harappan Civilization. The term civilization refers to a developed form of culture. Culture is the complete way of life of a community. The word also represents the Urbanization. Indus Valley civilization represents the first urbanization in India. The second urbanization in India formed after a long break in 600 BCE.

Earlier, people started using stone tools for daily activities in prehistoric period. We have already studied about the Prehistoric Period in India. Then, they started using copper. After that, they started using bronze and other metals like silver. This civilization emerged during the Bronze Age. This period was majorly succeeded by the Vedic Period.

Geographical Extent of Indus Valley Civilization

Indus Valley civilization shows a vast geographical extent. Below are the modern-day places where the civilization existed in its time.

• Baluchistan
• Sindh
• Punjab
• Haryana
• Rajasthan
• Some areas of Western UP
• Gujarat.

Here Punjab represents both parts of Punjab (India and Pakistan). It was spread over a triangular geographical extent. Egypt and Mesopotamian civilizations were other contemporary civilizations of this time. They were smaller in geographical extent than the Harappan civilization. An interesting fact about the civilization is that it is larger than Pakistan today. Baluchistan, Sind, and Punjab are part of modern Pakistan. Gujrat, Rajasthan, and Haryana are part of modern India. Also, there are some areas of western Uttar Pradesh.

Major Sites of Indus Valley Civilization

Researchers have discovered hundreds of sites that belong to this civilization. As we already know, civilization is based on an urban phenomenon. The cities, towns, and villages existed in it. When we say sites of the Indus Valley Civilization, it includes both urban and rural. But in this list, we are only talking about the urban sites.

1. Harappa – Punjab
2. Sutkagendor – Baluchistan
3. Mohanjodaro – Sindh
4. Rakhigarhi – Haryana
5. Dhaulavira – Gujrat
6. Lothal – Gujrat
7. Ropar – Punjab (India)
8. Surkotada – Gujrat
9. Kalibangan – Rajasthan

Harappa, Mohanjodaro, and Sutkagendor are in pakistan. The rest of the sites are in India. In India, Rakhigarhi is the largest site. Overall, the largest site is Mohanjodaro. The core zone of the Indus Valley Civilization is the river Indus and its tributaries. Many of the sites were situated near the river banks. The site Lothal and Sutkagendor were a port site.

Origin of Indus Valley Civilization

Earlier there were several philosophies about the origin of Indus Valley Civilization. Some archeologists say people from other urban civilizations established the Indus Valley Civilization, such as Mesopotamian Civilization. Some archaeologists and authors used the term colonization. They used it to explain the rise of this civilization. Some people called Harappa and Mohenjodaro two colonial cities.

These theories are called the foreign origin theories of this civilization. Another view says that the Aryans created the civilization. But around 1970-80, many archaeologists agreed at one point. They said that this work was neither done by outsiders nor by Aryans. This civilization was the result of a long cultural revolution.

It began in northwest India around 6000 BC. These views are known as indigenous views of the origin of the Indus Valley Civilization. According to these views, there were farming communities in the northwest. This was around 6000 BCE. These farming communities are known as part of the last Stone Age known age Neolithic culture. These communities gradually evolved and became matured.

The communities exploited the favorable environmental conditions. They used the new technologies that they developed. This long-term cultural evolution led to the acquired civilization. It happened around 2600-2500 BCE. This is all about the origin theory of the Indus Valley Civilization. It is based on the most accepted view in history.

The pre-Harappan and early-Harappan phases were just culture. But, the mature Harappan phase was a civilization. It was marked by urban centers. Culture is a way of life, it includes many things. These are Social Life, Political Life, Economic Life, and Religious Life. They also cover Ideas and Beliefs, Food Habits, and Languages. Civilization is the higher order of culture.

It is known for urbanization. It means there was no urbanization during the first two phases. But in the Early-Harappan phase, we find several features. These features continued till the mature Harappan phase. Archeologists found Images of mother goddesses in the Early-Harappan phase first. They also found evidence of plowing and usage of bronze in the early Harappan phase. These features continued till mature Harappan. Town planning, Big structures, and the art of writing are new features of mature Harappan. Long-distance trade and advanced crafts like pottery and seals were also new.

Features of Indus Valley Civilization

1. Town Planning: A major feature of the Indus Valley Civilization is its urban centers. These urban centers were like a planned modern city. All the major cities exhibit a specific type of town planning. These are divided into the Citadel Area and in Acropolis or Lower Town. The Citadel Area: It was an area which was having fortification and was the place where elites lived. 

     Acropolis or Lower town: This is the place where commons lived. The roads of the           Indus Valley Civilization cut across each other at 90 degrees. The whole city was                 divided into rectangular blocks called grid patterns. In Dholavira, division of the whole         city in three parts: Citadel, Middle Town, and Lower Town. There was also an effective         drainage system. The drainage system was built on either side of the road. Big                   Structures like the Great Bath and Assembly Hall were discovered from Mohen-jo Daro.

    The Great Tank was discovered from the Dholavira. The granary is also a big structure        in multiple cities. It appears that the granaries are famous in the Indus Valley                    Civilization. The houses of the Indus Valley Civilization were characterized by few                rooms, bathrooms, and staircases.

    They mainly used burnt brick for building their houses. The bricks were used with an          interlocking technology. Although they also utilized  the sun-dried bricks in some places.      All the houses were equipped with a toilet and showers. There were ventilation                  arrangements as well for each house. Each house        has its dustbin which assures          that there is no waste thrown outside. There were public        shower places as well.          The bricks were made in the ratio of 1:2:4 in terms of thickness, width, and length.

1. Agriculture and Allied Activities – Craft & Trade: This feature shows the economic activities of the Harappan civilization. Indus valley civilization was an urban civilization and we see urban economic activities here such as crafts and trade. People were also dependent on agriculture and allied activities. The whole economy of indus valley civlization were mainly dependent on Agriculture and Allied activities (Domestification of Animals) and also on craft and trade. Many evidences have been found, from which we find that water management, water harvesting and irrigation were widely done in this civilization. It contains reservoirs, dams and wells etc.

Multiple evidences of sophisticated refined crafts have also been found, including                pottery, paintings, terracotta painting, stone, metal, seals and more. The crafts have          three forms which are terracotta crafts, stone crafts and metal crafts. Intra-Indus Valley      trade was also carried out on a large scale. In which trade took place between different      cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. In addition they have trade relations with Bahrain,      the Persian Gulf region and Mesopotamia. Trade with Mesopotamia shows their trades in      long distance. This was a prominent feature of this civilization. We also find mentions of      Indus Valley Civilization in Mesopotamian texts.

1. Art of Writing: Indus valley people were the first ones to know the art of writing. They have used their own script which is also known for indus valley scripts. Although, we are not able to decipher the indus valley script but it shows that the people were know the art of writing. Script was not alphabetical, it was pictographical. There are findings from which we can say that they were writing right to left. In certain cases, we also found the writing pattern in which the first line was written right to left and the second line written in left to right and so on. This is also called the boustro-phedon pattern. Most of the writings are on seals. Seals are normally made up of steatite.
2. Arts: We know the indus valley civlization represents the higher form of culture so it was also charecterized by arts. Art of this civilization can be classified into Architecture, Sculptures and Paintings. Architecture is the art which we see in building structures. They used English Bond technique,Gypsum and burnt bricks for building houses. English Bond is a technique for the course of using bricks. In which, one brick is in vertical form and the next one is in the horizontal form and so on. Gypsum was used as mortar for construction. There are findings of the usage of burnt bricks and baked bricks. In the contemporary civilization, we don’t found the evidence of burnt or baked bricks. They were only using dried bricks.

Sculpture art was found in three forms, terracotta, metal and stone. Metal sculputre            represents the brilliant expression of metallurgy. The most brilliant example of sculpture      art is a bronze dancing girl from Mohanjodaro. This name was given by the famous            archeologist Jhon Marshall. The most beautiful example of stone sculpture are seals.          Seals have different kind of ingredients and they represents relief. Pottery paintings are      also an important form of art in this civilization. It was mainly in red ware. Some                pottery shows painting in black also. All the pottery discovered do not show painting but      many of them shows it. Painting also represents different kind of images like trees,            geological design and human images.

1. Technology: Technology played an important role in the rise of this civilization.  Favorable environmental conditions was there which helped in the rise of this civilization such as river valley areas, availability of water resources or alluvial soil are . The technology they used to exploit these favorable environmental conditions also helped them a lot.

Technology played an important role in explaining the entire environment. Evidence of        ploughing, dams, reservoirs, use of gypsum, bone making etc. is found. The result was      a  gradual development that gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization. Boat making            technology played a role in long-term trade, lost wax technology played a role in m            metallurgy, especially creating images in metal.

1. Religious Life and Burial Practices: There are various kind of evidences of the religious life and burial practices. Large number of seals depicted with various kind of images were found in many sites of Harappan Civilization. Certain structures were also found like The Great Bath. Other than this, multiple objexts and images were also discovered. These all throw light on the religious beliefs of Indus Valley Civilization.

With the help of these three kind of evidences, we reconstruct the religious life of Indus      Valley Civilization. Maybe they worship mother goddesses, Pasupathi (shiva), fertility          cult, trees, animals or fire. Evidences also suggests variety of burial practices. Initially        bodies were buried in wooden coffins, but later, a cultural shift known as ‘H symmetry        culture’ emerged, whereby painted burial urns began to be used for burials.

1. Multi-Ethnic (Authors): From the analysis of the sculps and skeletons of this civilization, we found that there existed four type of races in this civilization. These were Pro-Australiod,Mediterranean. Alpinoid and the Mongoloid. Since there were four races so the civilization was the multi-ethnic. These races also refers to as the authors of this civilization.
2. Weights and Measures: Indus Valley people followed a standard weights and measures system. In many cases, we find the weight system followed in the multiple of sixteen. This tradition followed in later period also. For example, sixteen annaas made 1 rupee in later phases also. This was an unique feature of Indus Valley Civilization.

Decline

As we have come to know that the beautiful civilization came to an end in the period 1900-1800 BC, how did this happen? There are divergent views and no consensus. Some archeologists including M. Wheeler said the foreign invasion as the reason of the decline of the Indus Valley Civlization. They said that aryans came from foreign and destroyed it. But this view is generally rejected as the aryans came india in around 1500 BCE and the civilization ended early.

Another view represented by archeologists John Marshall says that the persistant flooding was the reason of the decline of this civilization. M.R Sahani’s view attribute Inundation as the reason of declining it. According to him, extreme water lodging is a major factor. According to H.T Lambrick, Tectonic disturbances were the factor of declining indus valley civilization. While Aureil Stein thinks that the Aridity is a reason. Last view which says the ecological imbalance were the reason and this view is represented by Walter A. Fairservis. In a broad way we can say, deurbanisation is the reason for decline. In these views, ecological imbalance is said to be more authentic view.

Accoding to this view, the population of the civilization kept growing and there came a time when the ecological conditions was not able to sustain the population. Some experts also believe that drying of the saraswati river was the main cause for climate change. There are views in which decline of trade with mesopotamia is also said to be a reason. Due to this people started migrating and that was the factor of slowly declining the Indus Valley Civilization.

Survival and Continuity

In 1800-1900 BCE, there was not a situation where nothing existed at all. In fact the civilization got transformed from urban to rural phase. Most archaeologists and historians agree that only the urban phase of this civilization ended around 1900–1800 BC. There was a cultural pattern which continued after this with rural elements. We know that the timeline of the Mature Harappan phase was 2600-2500 BCE to 1900-1800 BCE.

After this phase, archaeologist named the second phase as Later Harappan/Late Harappan. This phase continued even after the decline of civilization. The Late Harappan phase represents only the rural elements of this civilization, as the urban elements disappeared around 1900 BCE. The timeline of this phase was from 1800-1900 BCE to 1200 BCE. Town planning, big structures, long distance trade, script, standard weights and measure, sophisticated refined art and crafts were at an end. Without all these the civilization continued and that was not a civilization, because it was not having urbanization. The continuity can be referred as cultural pattern.

Mature Harappan phase represents the civilization, but Late Harappan phase only represents the culture. In this phase, Indus Valley People spread to some new regions also like Western U.P, Kashmir. Certain sites we have discoverd like Alamgirpur in western up which shows elements of Late Harappan Phase.There were some elements which continued after the decline also in Late Harappan Phase. That’s why we can call it the survival and continuity of Indus Valley Civilization.

Some archeologists also suggests that there were some elements which continued after this phase also. It was mixed with subsequent cultural trends. Many archeologists also consider that some trends of Harappan Civilization we find even today, like tree worship, animal worship and so on.