Editing Indus Valley Civilisation (section)

== Late Harappan ==
[[File:Indus Valley Civilization, Late Phase (1900-1300 BCE).png|thumb|upright=1.5|Late Harappan Period, {{Circa|1900}}–1300&nbsp;BCE]]
[[File:Coach driver Indus 01.jpg|thumb|right|Bronze Late Harappan figures from a hoard at [[Daimabad]], {{Circa|2000}}&nbsp;BCE ([[Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya|Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay]])<ref>{{Cite web|title=akg-images -|url=https://www.akg-images.co.uk/archive/-2UMDHURTGV0S.html|access-date=14 January 2022|website=www.akg-images.co.uk|archive-date=14 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220114161838/https://www.akg-images.co.uk/archive/-2UMDHURTGV0S.html|url-status=live}}</ref>]]

Around 1900&nbsp;BCE signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE most of the cities had been abandoned. Examination of human skeletons from the site of Harappa in the 2010s demonstrated that the end of the Indus civilisation saw an increase in inter-personal violence and in infectious diseases like [[leprosy]] and [[tuberculosis]].<ref name="Schug2012">{{cite journal |author1=Robbins-Schug, G. |author2=Gray, K.M. |author3=Mushrif, V. |author4=Sankhyan, A.R. |date=November 2012 |title=A Peaceful Realm? Trauma and Social Differentiation at Harappa |journal=International Journal of Paleopathology |volume=2 |issue=2–3 |pages=136–147 |doi=10.1016/j.ijpp.2012.09.012 |pmid=29539378 |bibcode=2012IJPal...2..136R |s2cid=3933522 |url=http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/G_Robbins_Schug_Peaceful_2012.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414132011/http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/G_Robbins_Schug_Peaceful_2012.pdf |archive-date=14 April 2021 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Schug2013>{{cite journal |author1=Robbins-Schug, Gwen |author2=Blevins, K. Elaine |author3=Cox, Brett |author4=Gray, Kelsey |author5=Mushrif-Tripathy, V. |title=Infection, Disease, and Biosocial Process at the End of the Indus Civilization |journal=PLOS ONE |date=December 2013 |volume=8 |issue=12 |at=e84814 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0084814 |pmid=24358372 |pmc=3866234 |bibcode=2013PLoSO...884814R|doi-access=free }}</ref>

According to historian [[Upinder Singh]], "the general picture presented by the late Harappan phase is one of a breakdown of urban networks and an expansion of rural ones."{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&pg=PA181 181]}}

During the period of approximately 1900 to 1700 BCE, multiple regional cultures emerged within the area of the Indus civilisation. The [[Cemetery H culture]] was in [[Punjab]], [[Haryana]], and [[Western Uttar Pradesh]], the [[Jhukar phase|Jhukar culture]] was in [[Sindh]], and the [[Rangpur, Gujarat|Rangpur culture]] (characterised by Lustrous Red Ware pottery) was in [[Gujarat]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.harappa.com/indus2/180.html|title=Late Harappan Localization Era Map &#124; Harappa|website=www.harappa.com|access-date=11 November 2017|archive-date=15 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180915155232/https://www.harappa.com/indus2/180.html|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Sfn|McIntosh|2008|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=1AJO2A-CbccC&pg=PR14 Map 4]}}{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&pg=PA211 211]}} Other sites associated with the Late phase of the Harappan culture are [[Pirak]] in [[Balochistan, Pakistan]], and [[Daimabad]] in [[Maharashtra]], India.{{sfn|Kenoyer|2006}}

The largest Late Harappan sites are Kudwala in [[Cholistan]] in [[Punjab,Pakistan|Punjab]], [[Bet Dwarka]] in [[Gujarat]], and [[Daimabad]] in [[Maharashtra]], which can be considered as urban, but they are smaller and few in number compared with the Mature Harappan cities. Bet Dwarka was fortified and continued to have contacts with the [[Persian Gulf]] region, but there was a general decrease of long-distance trade.{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|pp=181, 223}} On the other hand, the period also saw a diversification of the agricultural base, with a diversity of crops and the advent of [[double-cropping]], as well as a shift of rural settlement towards the east and the south.{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|pp=180–181}}

The pottery of the Late Harappan period is described as "showing some continuity with mature Harappan pottery traditions", but also distinctive differences.{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|p=211}} Many sites continued to be occupied for some centuries, although their urban features declined and disappeared. Formerly typical artifacts such as stone weights and female figurines became rare. There are some circular [[stamp seal]]s with geometric designs, but lacking the [[Indus script]] which characterised the mature phase of the civilisation. Script is rare and confined to potsherd inscriptions.{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|p=211}} There was also a decline in long-distance trade, although the local cultures show new innovations in [[faience]] and glass making, and carving of stone beads.{{sfn|Kenoyer|2006}} Urban amenities such as drains and the public bath were no longer maintained, and newer buildings were "poorly constructed". Stone sculptures were deliberately vandalised, valuables were sometimes concealed in [[hoard]]s, suggesting unrest, and the corpses of animals and even humans were left unburied in the streets and in abandoned buildings.{{Sfn|McIntosh|2008|pp=91, 98}}

During the later half of the 2nd&nbsp;millennium BCE, most of the post-urban Late Harappan settlements were abandoned altogether. Subsequent material culture was typically characterised by temporary occupation, "the campsites of a population which was nomadic and mainly pastoralist" and which used "crude handmade pottery".{{sfn|Allchin|1995|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C&pg=PA36 36]}} However, there is greater continuity and overlap between Late Harappan and subsequent cultural phases at sites in [[Punjab]], [[Haryana]], and western [[Uttar Pradesh]], primarily small rural settlements.{{sfn|Singh, Upinder|2008|pp=180–181}}{{sfn|Allchin|1995|pp=37–38}}

===Aryan migration===
{{See also|Vedic period|Indo-Aryan migrations}}
[[File:Cemetery H Pottery.png|thumb|right|Painted pottery urns from Harappa ([[Cemetery H culture]], {{Circa|1900}}–1300&nbsp;BCE), [[National Museum, New Delhi]]]]

In 1953 Sir [[Mortimer Wheeler]] proposed that the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central Asia, the "[[Indo-Aryan migration|Aryans]]", caused the decline of the Indus civilisation. As evidence, he cited a group of 37 skeletons found in various parts of Mohenjo-daro, and passages in the Vedas referring to battles and forts. However, scholars soon started to reject Wheeler's theory, since the skeletons belonged to a period after the city's abandonment and none were found near the citadel. Subsequent examinations of the skeletons by [[Kenneth A. R. Kennedy|Kenneth Kennedy]] in 1994 showed that the marks on the skulls were caused by erosion, and not by violence.<ref name="Bryant">{{cite book |title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/questfororiginsv00brya |url-access=limited |year=2001 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/questfororiginsv00brya/page/n171 159]–160 |author=Edwin Bryant|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=978-0-19-513777-4 }}</ref>

In the [[Cemetery H culture]] (the late Harappan phase in the Punjab region), some of the designs painted on the funerary urns have been interpreted through the lens of [[historical Vedic religion|Vedic literature]]: for instance, peacocks with hollow bodies and a small human form inside, which has been interpreted as the souls of the dead, and a hound that can be seen as the hound of [[Yama]], the god of death.{{sfn|Mallory|Adams|1997|p=102}}{{sfn|Allchin |Allchin|1982|p=246}} This may indicate the introduction of new religious beliefs during this period, but the archaeological evidence does not support the hypothesis that the Cemetery H people were the destroyers of the Harappan cities.{{sfn|Mallory|Adams|1997|pp=102–103}}

===Climate change and drought===
{{See also|Bond event|4.2-kiloyear event}}
Suggested contributory causes for the localisation of the IVC include changes in the course of the river,<ref>David Knipe (1991), ''Hinduism''. San Francisco: Harper</ref> and [[climate change]] that is also signaled for the neighboring areas of the Middle East.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://phys.org/news/2014-02-decline-bronze-age-megacities-linked.html |title=Decline of Bronze Age 'megacities' linked to climate change |date=February 2014 |website=phys.org |access-date=31 October 2015 |archive-date=22 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622164659/https://phys.org/news/2014-02-decline-bronze-age-megacities-linked.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Marris|first=Emma|date=3 March 2014|title=Two-hundred-year drought doomed Indus Valley Civilization|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14800|journal=Nature|language=en|doi=10.1038/nature.2014.14800|s2cid=131063035|issn=1476-4687|access-date=14 February 2023|archive-date=24 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124002339/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14800|url-status=live}}</ref> {{As of| 2016}} many scholars believe that drought, and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia, caused the collapse of the Indus civilisation.<ref name="Science">{{cite journal|date=6 June 2008|title=Indus Collapse: The End or the Beginning of an Asian Culture?|journal=Science Magazine|volume=320|pages=1282–1283|doi=10.1126/science.320.5881.1281 | last1 = Lawler | first1 = A.|issue=5881|pmid=18535222|s2cid=206580637}}</ref> The climate change which caused the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation was possibly due to "an abrupt and critical [[4.2-kiloyear event|mega-drought and cooling 4,200&nbsp;years ago]]", which marks the onset of the [[Meghalayan|Meghalayan Age]], the present stage of the [[Holocene]].<ref>{{cite web |publisher=International Commission on Stratigraphy |title=Collapse of civilizations worldwide defines youngest unit of the Geologic Time Scale |url=http://www.stratigraphy.org/index.php/ics-news-and-meetings/119-collapse-of-civilizations-worldwide-defines-youngest-unit-of-the-geologic-time-scale |series=News and Meetings |access-date=15 July 2018|archive-date=15 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715004024/http://www.stratigraphy.org/index.php/ics-news-and-meetings/119-collapse-of-civilizations-worldwide-defines-youngest-unit-of-the-geologic-time-scale}}</ref>

The [[Ghaggar-Hakra]] system was rain-fed,{{sfn|Clift|Carter|Giosan|Durcan|2012}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Geological research by a group led by [[Peter Clift]] investigated how the courses of rivers have changed in this region since 8000&nbsp;years ago, to test whether climate or river reorganisations caused the decline of the Harappan. Using U-Pb dating of zircon sand grains they found that sediments typical of the Beas, Sutlej, and Yamuna rivers (Himalayan tributaries of the Indus) are actually present in former Ghaggar-Hakra channels. However, sediment contributions from these glacial-fed rivers stopped at least by 10,000&nbsp;years ago, well before the development of the Indus civilisation.{{sfn|Clift|Carter|Giosan|Durcan|2012}}}}<ref name="Tripathi_2004"/>{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Tripathi et al. (2004) found that the isotopes of sediments carried by the Ghaggar-Hakra system over the last 20&nbsp;thousand years do not come from the glaciated Higher Himalaya but have a sub-Himalayan source, and concluded that the river system was rain-fed. They also concluded that this contradicted the idea of a Harappan-time mighty "Sarasvati" river.<ref name="Tripathi_2004">{{cite journal |first1=Jayant K. |last1=Tripathi |author2=Bock, Barbara |author3=Rajamani, V. |author4=Eisenhauer, A. |title=Is River Ghaggar, Saraswati? Geochemical Constraints |journal=Current Science |volume=87 |issue=8 |date=25 October 2004 |url=http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/oct252004/1141.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041225113356/http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/oct252004/1141.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 December 2004}}</ref>}} and water-supply depended on the monsoons. The Indus Valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800&nbsp;BCE, linked to a general weakening of the [[monsoon]] at that time.{{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}} The Indian monsoon declined and aridity increased, with the Ghaggar-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills of the Himalaya,{{Sfn|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}}<ref>{{cite news |url=http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/an-ancient-civilization-upended-by-climate-change/?_r=0 |title=An Ancient Civilization, Upended by Climate Change |author=Rachel Nuwer |author-link=Rachel Nuwer |date=28 May 2012 |access-date=29 May 2012 |newspaper=New York Times |series=LiveScience |archive-date=7 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191007120514/https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/an-ancient-civilization-upended-by-climate-change/?_r=0 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.livescience.com/20614-collapse-mythical-river-civilization.html |title=Huge Ancient Civilization's Collapse Explained |author=Charles Choi |date=29 May 2012 |access-date=18 May 2016 |newspaper=New York Times |archive-date=1 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200501194840/https://www.livescience.com/20614-collapse-mythical-river-civilization.html |url-status=live }}</ref> leading to erratic and less extensive floods that made inundation agriculture less sustainable.

Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and scatter its population eastward.{{sfn|Madella|Fuller|2006}}{{sfn|MacDonald|2011}}<ref name=brooke-2014>{{harvnb|Brooke|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=O9TSAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA296 296]}}</ref><!-- **START OF NOTE** -->{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="Note-Brooke"|{{harvp|Brooke|2014|p=296}}. "The story in Harappan India was somewhat different (see Figure 111.3). The Bronze Age village and urban societies of the Indus Valley are something of an anomaly, in that archaeologists have found little indication of local defense and regional warfare. It would seem that the bountiful monsoon rainfall of the Early to Mid-Holocene had forged a condition of plenty for all and that competitive energies were channeled into commerce rather than conflict. Scholars have long argued that these rains shaped the origins of the urban Harappan societies, which emerged from Neolithic villages around 2600 BC. It now appears that this rainfall began to slowly taper off in the third millennium, at just the point that the Harappan cities began to develop. Thus it seems that this "first urbanisation" in South Asia was the initial response of the Indus Valley peoples to the beginning of Late Holocene aridification. These cities were maintained for 300 to 400 years and then gradually abandoned as the Harappan peoples resettled in scattered villages in the eastern range of their territories, into Punjab and the Ganges Valley....' 17 (footnote):<br />
(a) {{harvp|Giosan|Clift|Macklin|Fuller|2012}};<br />
(b) {{harvp|Ponton|Giosan|Eglinton|Fuller|2012}};<br />
(c) {{harvp|Rashid|England|Thompson|Polyak|2011}};<br />
(d) {{harvp|Madella|Fuller|2006}};<br />Compare with the very different interpretations in <br />
(e) {{harvp|Possehl|2002|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pmAuAsi4ePIC&pg=PA239 237–245]}}<br />
(f) {{harvp|Staubwasser|Sirocko|Grootes|Segl|2003}}}}<!-- **END OF NOTE** --> According to Giosan et al. (2012), the IVC residents did not develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer floods. As the monsoons kept shifting south, the floods grew too erratic for sustainable agricultural activities. The residents then migrated towards the Ganges basin in the east, where they established smaller villages and isolated farms. The small surplus produced in these small communities did not allow the development of trade, and the cities died out.<ref>{{cite news |author=Thomas H. Maugh II |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-indus-harappan-20120528,0,1127932.story |title=Migration of monsoons created, then killed Harappan civilization |date=28 May 2012 |access-date=29 May 2012 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |archive-date=19 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121119111817/http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-indus-harappan-20120528,0,1127932.story |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |display-authors=4 |last1=Dixit |first1=Yama |last2=Hodell |first2=David A.|last3=Giesche|first3=Alena|last4=Tandon|first4=Sampat K. |last5=Gázquez|first5=Fernando |last6=Saini|first6=Hari S.|last7=Skinner|first7=Luke C.|last8=Mujtaba |first8=Syed A.I.|last9=Pawar|first9=Vikas|date=9 March 2018|title=Intensified summer monsoon and the urbanization of Indus Civilization in northwest India|journal=Scientific Reports|volume=8|issue=1|page=4225 |doi=10.1038/s41598-018-22504-5|pmid=29523797|pmc=5844871|issn=2045-2322|bibcode=2018NatSR...8.4225D}}</ref>

===Continuity and coexistence===
Archaeological excavations indicate that the decline of Harappa drove people eastward.<ref>{{cite book |title=Kamandalu: The Seven Sacred Rivers of Hinduism |page=125 |publisher=Mayur University |first=Shrikala |last=Warrier}}</ref> According to Possehl, after 1900&nbsp;BCE the number of sites in today's India increased from 218 to 853. According to [[Andrew Lawler]], "excavations along the Gangetic plain show that cities began to arise there starting about 1200&nbsp;BCE, just a few centuries after Harappa was deserted and much earlier than once suspected."<ref name="Science" />{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Most sites of the [[Painted Grey Ware]] culture in the Ghaggar-Hakra and Upper Ganges Plain were small farming villages. However, "several dozen" PGW sites eventually emerged as relatively large settlements that can be characterized as towns, the largest of which were fortified by ditches or moats and embankments made of piled earth with wooden palisades, albeit smaller and simpler than the elaborately fortified large cities which grew after {{nowrap|600 BCE}} in the more fully urban [[Northern Black Polished Ware]] culture.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Heitzman|first=James|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdcnAgh_StUC|title=The City in South Asia|date=2008|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-28963-9|pages=12–13}}</ref>}} According to Jim Shaffer there was a continuous series of cultural developments, just as in most areas of the world. These link "the so-called two major phases of urbanisation in South Asia".<ref name="Spodek" />

At sites such as [[Bhagwanpura, Haryana|Bhagwanpura]] (in [[Haryana]]), archaeological excavations have discovered an overlap between the final phase of Late Harappan pottery and the earliest phase of [[Painted Grey Ware]] pottery, the latter being associated with the [[Vedic period|Vedic culture]] and dating from around 1200&nbsp;BCE. This site provides evidence of multiple social groups occupying the same village but using different pottery and living in different types of houses: "over time the Late Harappan pottery was gradually replaced by Painted Grey ware pottery," and other cultural changes indicated by archaeology include the introduction of the horse, iron tools, and new religious practices.{{sfn|Kenoyer|2006}}

There is also a Harappan site called [[Rojdi]] in [[Rajkot]] district of [[Saurashtra (region)|Saurashtra]]. Its excavation started under an archaeological team from Gujarat State Department of Archaeology and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania in 1982–83. In their report on archaeological excavations at Rojdi, [[Gregory Possehl]] and M.H. Raval write that although there are "obvious signs of cultural continuity" between the Harappan civilisation and later South Asian cultures, many aspects of the Harappan "sociocultural system" and "integrated civilization" were "lost forever," while the Second Urbanisation of India (beginning with the [[Northern Black Polished Ware]] culture, {{Circa|600}}&nbsp;BCE) "lies well outside this sociocultural environment".<ref>{{cite book |title=Harappan Civilisation and Rojdi |first1=Gregory L. |last1=Possehl |first2=M.H. |last2=Raval |year=1989 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LtgUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA19 19] |publisher=Oxford & IBH Publishing Company |isbn=8120404041 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LtgUAAAAIAAJ}}</ref>