Editing Indus Valley Civilisation (section)

== Post-Harappan ==
{{Main|Iron Age in India}}

Previously, scholars believed that the decline of the Harappan civilisation led to an interruption of urban life in the Indian subcontinent. However, the Indus Valley Civilisation did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus civilisation appear in later cultures. The [[Cemetery H culture]] may be the manifestation of the Late Harappan over a large area in the region of [[Punjab]], [[Haryana]] and western [[Uttar Pradesh]], and the [[Ochre Coloured Pottery culture]] its successor. David Gordon White cites three other mainstream scholars who "have emphatically demonstrated" that [[Historical Vedic religion|Vedic religion]] derives partially from the Indus Valley Civilisations.<ref>{{cite book |last=White |first=David Gordon |title=Kiss of the Yogini |url=https://archive.org/details/kissyoginitantri00whit |url-access=limited |year=2003 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-226-89483-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/kissyoginitantri00whit/page/n140 28]}}</ref>

{{As of | 2016}}, archaeological data suggests that the material culture classified as Late Harappan may have persisted until at least {{Circa|1000}}–900&nbsp;BCE and was partially contemporaneous with the [[Painted Grey Ware]] culture.<ref name="Spodek">{{cite book|last= Shaffer|first= Jim|year= 1993|chapter= Reurbanization: The eastern Punjab and beyond|title= Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia: The Shaping of Cities from Prehistoric to Precolonial Times|editor= [[Howard Spodek|Spodek, Howard]] |editor2=Srinivasan, Doris M.}}</ref> Harvard archaeologist Richard Meadow points to the late Harappan settlement of [[Pirak]], which thrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the invasion of [[Alexander the Great]] in 325&nbsp;BCE.<ref name="Science" />

In the aftermath of the Indus civilisation's localisation, regional cultures emerged, to varying degrees showing the influence of the Indus civilisation. In the formerly great city of Harappa, burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called the [[Cemetery H culture]]. At the same time, the [[Ochre Coloured Pottery culture]] expanded from [[Rajasthan]] into the [[Gangetic Plain]]. The Cemetery H culture has the earliest evidence for [[cremation]]; a practice dominant in [[Hinduism]] today.

The inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilisation migrated from the river valleys of Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra, towards the Himalayan foothills of the Ganga-Yamuna basin.{{sfn|Sarkar|Mukherjee|Bera|Das|2016}}