Agriculture during Indus Valley Civilization

 The nature of the Indus civilization's agricultural system is still largely a matter of conjecture due to the limited amount of information surviving through the ages. Some speculation is possible, however.

Earlier studies (prior to 1980) often assumed that food production was imported to the Indus Valley by a single linguistic group ("Aryans") and/or from a single area. But recent studies indicate that food production was largely indigenous to the Indus Valley. Already the Mehrgarh people used domesticated wheats and barley and the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row barley. Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments."

Indus civilization agriculture must have been highly productive; after all, it was capable of generating surpluses sufficient to support tens of thousands of urban residents who were not primarily engaged in agriculture. It relied on the considerable technological achievements of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough. Still, very little is known about the farmers who supported the cities or their agricultural methods. Some of them undoubtedly made use of the fertile alluvial soil left by rivers after the flood season, but this simple method of agriculture is not thought to be productive enough to support cities. There is no evidence of irrigation, but such evidence could have been obliterated by repeated, catastrophic floods.

The Indus civilization appears to contradict the hydraulic despotism hypothesis of the origin of urban civilization and the state. According to this hypothesis, cities could not have arisen without irrigation systems capable of generating massive agricultural surpluses. To build these systems, a despotic, centralized state emerged that was able to suppress the social status of thousands of people and harness their labor as slaves. It is very difficult to square this hypothesis with what is known about the Indus civilization. There is no evidence of kings, slaves, or forced mobilization of labor.

It is often assumed that intensive agricultural production requires dams and canals. This assumption is easily refuted. Throughout Asia, rice farmers produce significant agricultural surpluses from terraced, hillside rice paddies, which result not from slavery but rather the accumulated labor of many generations of people. Instead of building canals, Indus civilization people may have built water diversion schemes, which - like terrace agriculture - can be elaborated by generations of small-scale labor investments.

In addition, it is known that Indus civilization people practiced rainfall harvesting, a powerful technology that was brought to fruition by classical Indian civilization but nearly forgotten in the 20th century. It should be remembered that Indus civilization people, like all peoples in South Asia, built their lives around the monsoon,a weather pattern in which the bulk of a year's rainfall occurs in a four-month period. At a recently discovered Indus civilization city in western India, archaeologists discovered a series of massive reservoirs, hewn from solid rock and designed to collect rainfall, that would have been capable of meeting the city's needs during the dry season.

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Invasion of Alexander in india

India, in Alexander's time, meant the land of the Indus–not necessarily the area where the modern country of India stands. The Greeks, who had limited knowledge of the geography of central Asia, knew almost nothing of the Indian subcontinent or China. India, to the Greeks, meant the area in western Pakistan, particularly the Punjab and Sind territories.

There are several possible reasons why Alexander chose to pursue India. Part may be simply that Persia had once possessed parts of India, and therefore Alexander, as the new Great King, wanted to reclaim it. As little was known about India, curiosity was likely also a factor. Perhaps most important, India was the end of Asia as far as Alexander knew; its acquisition was necessary if he was to rule the entire continent.

The invasion of India began in the summer of 327 B.C. Alexander proceeded as he had in his Persian conquest, vanquishing city by city. Many cities surrendered without a fight; those that did not were usually massacred without mercy. Alexander soon gained the support of Ambhi, the ruler of Attock. Alexander and his troops rested for a couple of months in the capital city of Taxiles as they prepared to meet Ambhi's enemy, Porus.

In response to Alexander's request that he submit, Porus assembled his army and prepared to meet Alexander on the bank of the Hydaspes River. When Alexander arrived, he found that Porus had the fords guarded with elephants, which made a crossing impossible. Moreover, whenever Alexander moved along the river, Porus mirrored him on the opposite side. To confuse his foe, Alexander divided his army into several units and spread them along the bank. This splitting up also gave Alexander a chance to search for other possible fords farther down; indeed, a suitable one was found seventeen miles upstream. The question was whether Alexander could keep Porus from following him all the way to that crossing point.

Once again Alexander devised a plan to confuse his enemy. For several nights, he sent the cavalry to various spots along the bank and instructed them to make noise and raise war cries. Porus, of course, followed them the first few times, but eventually stopped responding to Alexander's bluffs. On the night planned for the attack, Alexander divided the troops into three groups. One would remain in the original spot to keep Porus off guard, while a second group prepared for a crossing that would take place only if Alexander succeeded in clearing the fords. Alexander himself led the third group, consisting of about 15,000 infantry and 5,500 cavalry. Porus sent an initial group of about 2,000 cavalry, led by his son, to attack the Macedonians while they were crossing and to drive them back into the river. However, the Indians did not make it in time to have the early advantage, and Alexander easily defeated the troops.

 

Porus was therefore forced to march against Alexander with full force, leaving only a small detachment to face the second crossing group. The fact that Porus's front line consisted entirely of elephants prevented Alexander from using his cavalry, as the horses would not charge in face of the elephants. Once again, Alexander succeeded with a brilliant strategy. He kept a segment of his cavalry hidden, allowing Porus to think that he was winning. When Porus advanced to exploit Alexander's apparent weakness, the hidden cavalry emerged and caused confusion among the already exposed Indians. The battle culminated in the surrounding of the Indians, and Porus was finally prevailed upon to surrender. The victory had not been easy, however. The Macedonians were particularly troubled about the elephants, which had brutally trampled and mangled their soldiers. Nevertheless, it was Alexander's last major battle and one of his greatest.

Alexander allowed Porus to continue his rule–a decision likely motivated by Alexander's recognition that he was running out of resources to maintain a strong presence at every corner of his territory. Nevertheless, Alexander's thirst was not quenched, and he wanted to press farther, though his next opponent, the Nanda empire, would have been very formidable. Alexander's troops had other plans, however, and talks of mutiny abounded. The troops had been away for eight years and marched over 17,000 miles. The elephants had been especially demoralizing, especially since it was reported that Nanda possessed about 4,000 of them. Alexander offered every possible incentive and bribe, but even his chief officers sympathized with the men. One senior officer, Coenus, finally rose to speak on behalf of the men, and Alexander finally recognized that a rebellion led by a popular man like Coenus was an alarming possibility.

Alexander, therefore, he was finally prevailed upon to turn around and head home, though he never forgave his men and officers. He was convinced that he could have conquered the entire world if his men had not turned their backs on him. Furthermore, he showed no apparent gratitude for their service and dedication. He purposely took a difficult journey home that required constant skirmishes with unconquered Indian provinces. Alexander's armies finally left India by sea in September 325 B.C.

Some sources have exaggerated Alexander's success, particularly in his domain over India. In reality, Alexander's influence in the area was limited. Porus was essentially an independent ruler, though formally he derived power from Alexander. Moreover, Alexander did not have the resources to hold India in line, and by 317 B.C. all traces of Macedonian power had essentially disappeared. Nevertheless, Alexander had led a great expedition to unfamiliar territory, and he had conquered it as effectively as he had conquered the rest of Asia.

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Harappa and Mohenjo Daro

Harappa
 
The ruins of Harrappa were first described in 1842 by Charles Masson in his Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab, where locals talked of an ancient city extending "thirteen cosses" (about 25 miles), but no archaeological interest would attach to this for nearly a century.

In 1856, General Alexander Cunningham, later director general of the archeological survey of northern India, visited Harappa where the British engineers John and William Brunton were laying the East Indian Railway Company line connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore. John wrote: "I was much exercised in my mind how we were to get ballast for the line of the railway". They were told of an ancient ruined city near the lines, called Brahminabad. 

Visiting the city, he found it full of hard well-burnt bricks, and, "convinced that there was a grand quarry for the ballast I wanted", the city of Brahminabad was reduced to ballast. A few months later, further north, John's brother William Brunton's "section of the line ran near another ruined city, bricks from which had already been used by villagers in the nearby village of Harappa at the same site. These bricks now provided ballast along 93 miles (150 km) of the railroad track running from Karachi to Lahore".

In 1872 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal (with an erroneous identification as Brahmi letters). It was half a century later, in 1912, that more Harappan seals were discovered by J. Fleet, prompting an excavation campaign under Sir John Hubert Marshall in 1921-22 and resulting in the discovery of the civilization at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni and Madho Sarup Vats, and at Mohenjo-daro by Rakhal Das Banerjee, E. J. H. MacKay, and Sir John Marshall.

By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro had been excavated, but excavations continued, such as that led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, director of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1944. Among other archaeologists who worked on IVC sites before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 were Ahmad Hasan Dani, Brij Basi Lal, Nani Gopal Majumdar, and Sir Marc Aurel Stein.

Following the Partition of India, the bulk of the archaeological finds were inherited by Pakistan where most of the IVC was based, and excavations from this time include those led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1949, archaeological adviser to the Government of Pakistan. Outposts of the Indus Valley civilization were excavated as far west as Sutkagan Dor in Baluchistan, as far north as at Shortugai on the Amu Darya (the river's ancient name was Oxus) in current Afghanistan, as far east as at Alamgirpur, Uttar Pradesh, India and as far south as at Malwan, Surat Dist., India.

On July 11th, heavy floods hit Haryana in India and damaged the archaeological site of Jognakhera, where ancient copper smelting were found dating back almost 5,000 years. The Indus Valley Civilization site was hit by almost 10 feet of water as the Sutlej Yamuna link canal overflowed. 

Mohenjo Daro
 
Mohenjo Daro - Mound of the Dead - is an archeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2600 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements, contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete. Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE, and was not rediscovered until 1922. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. However, the site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration. 


Mohenjo Daro likely was, at its time, the greatest city in the world. Roughly 4,500 years ago, as many as 35,000 people lived and worked in the massive city, which occupies 250 acres along PakistanÕs Indus river. Mohenjo Daro sat beneath the soil for thousands of years, a preserved relic of the ancient Indus Valley civilization. But excavation exposed the city to the elements, and now, says the Telegraph, the ruins may have as little as 20 years left. 

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Major Cities of Indus valley civilization

 A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley civilization. The quality of municipal town planning suggests knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene. The streets of major cities such as Mohenjo-daro or Harappa were laid out in a perfect grid pattern, comparable to that of present day New York. The houses were protected from noise, odors, and thieves.

As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, and the recently discovered Rakhigarhi, this urban plan included the world's first urban sanitation systems. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes.

The ancient Indus systems of sewage and drainage that were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus Empire were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in some areas of modern Pakistan and India today. The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their impressive dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive citadels of Indus cities that protected the Harappans from floods and attackers were larger than most Mesopotamian ziggurats.

The purpose of the "Citadel" remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilization's contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, no large monumental structures were built. There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or temples or, indeed, of kings, armies, or priests. Some structures are thought to have been granaries. Found at one city is an enormous well-built bath, which may have been a public bath. Although the "Citadels" are walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive. They may have been built to divert flood waters.

Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighborhoods. Materials from distant regions were used in the cities for constructing seals, beads, and other objects. Among the artifacts made were beautiful beads of glazed stone called faence. 

The seals have images of animals, gods, etc., and inscriptions. Some of the seals were used to stamp clay on trade goods, but they probably had other uses.Although some houses were larger than others, Indus civilization cities were remarkable for their apparent egalitarianism. For example, all houses had access to water and drainage facilities. One gets the impression of a vast middle-class society.

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Geography of Indus Valley Civilization

 The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan and parts of northwestern India, Afghanistan and Iran, extending from Balochistan in the west to Uttar Pradesh in the east, northeastern Afghanistan to the north and Maharashtra to the south.

The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilizations that arose there in a highly similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. Recently, Indus sites have been discovered in Pakistan's northwestern Frontier Province as well.

Other IVC colonies can be found in Afghanistan while smaller isolated colonies can be found as far away as Turkmenistan and in Gujarat. Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor in Western Baluchistan to Lothal in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan, in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan, at Manda,Jammu on the Beas River near Jammu, India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi. Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient seacoast, for example, Balakot, and on islands, for example, Dholavira.

There is evidence of dry river beds overlapping with the Hakra channel in Pakistan and the seasonal Ghaggar River in India. Many Indus Valley (or Harappan) sites have been discovered along the Ghaggar-Hakra beds. Among them are: Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Sothi, Kalibangan, and Ganwariwala. According to J. G. Shaffer and D. A. Lichtenstein, the Harappan Civilization "is a fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, and Koti Dij traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley on the borders of India and Pakistan".

According to some archaeologists, more than 500 Harappan sites have been discovered along the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries, in contrast to only about 100 along the Indus and its tributaries; consequently, in their opinion, the appellation Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization or Indus-Saraswati civilization is justified.

However, these politically inspired arguments are disputed by other archaeologists who state that the Ghaggar-Hakra desert area has been left untouched by settlements and agriculture since the end of the Indus period and hence shows more sites than found in the alluvium of the Indus valley; second, that the number of Harappan sites along the Ghaggar-Hakra river beds have been exaggerated and that the Ghaggar-Hakra, when it existed, was a tributary of the Indus, so the new nomenclature is redundant. "Harappan Civilization" remains the correct one, according to the common archaeological usage of naming a civilization after its first findspot.

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The Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300-1300 BCE; mature period 2600-1900 BCE) extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilizations of the Old World, and of the three the most widespread It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which once coursed through northwest India and eastern Pakistan.

At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of over five million. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large non-residential buildings

The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization, after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab province of British India, and now is Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa, and soon afterwards, Mohenjo-Daro, was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj.Excavation of Harappan sites has been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999.

There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilization. The Harappan civilization is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures.

Until 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements had been found, of which 96 have been excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala in Cholistan and Rakhigarhi.

The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favored by a section of scholars. 

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