How the Indus River Valley Civilization Adapting to a Changing Climate

With climate change in our own era becoming increasingly evident, it's natural to wonder how our ancestors may have dealt with similar environmental circumstances. New research methods and technologies are able to shed light on climate patterns that took place thousands of years ago, giving us a new perspective on how cultures of the time coped with variable and changing environments.

A new article in the February issue of Current Anthropology explores the dynamics of adaptation and resilience in the face of a diverse and varied environmental context, using the case study of South Asia's Indus Civilization (c.3000-1300 BC). Integrating research carried out as part of the Land, Water and Settlement project -- part of an ongoing collaboration between the University of Cambridge and Banaras Hindu University -- that worked in northwest India between 2007 and 2014, the article looks at how Indus populations in north-west India interacted with their environment, and considers how that environment changed during periods of climate change.

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The Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan) Started Growing Rice MUCH Earler Than Thought

Approaching rice domestication in South Asia: New evidence from Indus settlements in northern India

Authors:

Bates et al

Abstract:

The nature and timing of rice domestication and the development of rice cultivation in South Asia is much debated. In northern South Asia there is presently a significant gap (c.4200 years) between earliest evidence for the exploitation of wild rice (Lahuradewa c.6000 BCE) and earliest dated evidence for the utilisation of fully domesticated rice (Mahagara c.1800 BCE). The Indus Civilisation (c.3000–1500 BCE) developed and declined during the intervening period, and there has been debate about whether rice was adopted and exploited by Indus populations during this ‘gap’. This paper presents new analysis of spikelet bases and weeds collected from three Indus Civilisation settlements in north-west India, which provide insight into the way that rice was exploited. This analysis suggests that starting in the period before the Indus urban phase (Early Harappan) and continuing through the urban (Mature Harappan/Harappan), post-urban (Late Harappan) and on into the post-Indus Painted Grey Ware (PGW) period, there was a progressive increase in the proportion of domesticated-type spikelet bases and a decrease in wild-types. This pattern fits with a model of the slow development of rice exploitation from wild foraging to agriculture involving full cultivation. Importantly, the accompanying weeds show no increased proportions of wetland species during this period. Instead a mix of wetland and dryland species was identified, and although these data are preliminary, they suggest that the development of an independent rice tradition may have been intertwined with the practices of the eastern most Indus peoples. These data also suggest that when fully domesticated Oryza sativa ssp. japonica was introduced around 2000 BCE, it arrived in an area that was already familiar with domesticated rice cultivation and a range of cultivation techniques.

Identifying Individual Harappan Seal Carvers 3,900+ Years Later

Finding Harappan seal carvers: An operational sequence approach to identifying people in the past

Author:

Green

Abstract:

The engravings on Harappan stamp seals allow the identification of particular artisans in the past. Toward this end, this article employs three-dimensional optical microscopy of stamp seal engravings to provide a non-destructive source of data for reconstructing specific sequences of action. Comparing these operational sequences (chaînes opératoire) reveals similarities that probably resulted from past production events undertaken by differing individual carvers. Applying this high resolution approach to a sample of five unicorn stamp seals from Mohenjo-daro (2600–1900 B.C.) strongly suggests that their engravings are the work of three artisans. The differences in their operational sequences provide preliminary insights into the boundaries between the communities of practice that produced Harappan seals. This approach can extend archaeological inquiry into many aspects of the social conditions in which seal production occurred. A close analysis of operational sequences reveals how the traces of specific actions, faithfully recorded in stone, can help us find people in the past whose specific activities would otherwise lie outside of scholarly investigation.

Reading Harappan

The Indus civilization flourished for half a millennium from about 2600 bc to 1900 bc. Then it mysteriously declined and vanished from view. It remained invisible for almost 4,000 years until its ruins were discovered by accident in the 1920s by British and Indian archaeologists. Following almost a century of excavation, it is today regarded as a civilization worthy of comparison with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, as the beginning of Indian civilization and possibly as the origin of Hinduism.

More than a thousand Indus settlements covered at least 800,000 square kilometres of what is now Pakistan and northwestern India. It was the most extensive urban culture of its period, with a population of perhaps 1 million and a vigorous maritime export trade to the Gulf and cities such as Ur in Mesopotamia, where objects inscribed with Indus signs have been discovered. Astonishingly, the culture has left no archaeological evidence of armies or warfare.

Most Indus settlements were villages; some were towns, and at least five were substantial cities. The two largest, Mohenjo-daro — a World Heritage Site listed by the United Nations — located near the Indus river, and Harappa, by one of the tributaries, boasted street planning and house drainage worthy of the twentieth century ad. They hosted the world's first known toilets, along with complex stone weights, elaborately drilled gemstone necklaces and exquisitely carved seal stones featuring one of the world's stubbornly undeciphered scripts.

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Studying the Metallurgy of the Harappan Civilization

Characterization and comparison of the copper-base metallurgy of the Harappan sites at Farmana in Haryana and Kuntasi in Gujarat, India

Authors:

Park et al

Abstract:

Copper-base metallic artifacts excavated from two Indus settlements at Farmana in Haryana and Kuntasi in Gujarat, India, were examined for their microstructure and chemical composition. The two sites were approximately contemporaneous and belong to the mature Harappan phase of the Indus Civilization, spanning the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. The microstructural data revealed that almost every object examined was substantially worked during fabrication. The composition data showed that arsenic served as the single alloying element in about 60% of the Farmana artifacts, with the rest of them made of either unalloyed copper or brass. Tin was not added deliberately in any of the Farmana artifacts. In the Kuntasi assemblage, however, tin as well as arsenic played a key role and most artifacts were alloyed with either arsenic or tin or both. Nevertheless, the two Harappan sites seem to have established a similar technology based on forging as the key fabrication method and circulation of product intermediaries as the primary means for metal acquisition. This article will present a detailed account of the mentioned results to characterize the technological status achieved by the two Indus communities. The results will then be compared with those of other Indus sites to gain insight into factors representing the general Indus bronze tradition.

Pastoral Land-use of the Indus Civilization

Pastoral land-use of the Indus Civilization in Gujarat: faunal analyses and biogenic isotopes at Bagasra

Authors:

Chase et al

Abstract:

The Indus Civilization (2600–1900 BC) in Gujarat is characterized by a series of small yet monumentally walled settlements located along trade and travel corridors. The manufacture and use of typically Harappan material culture at these settlements demonstrates that many residents of these sites participated in exchange and interaction networks that linked them to distant Indus cities. Less is known, however, regarding the ways in which the residents of these sites were situated into their local landscapes. Here we combine previously published faunal analyses from the small walled settlement of Bagasra in the Indian state of Gujarat, with a preliminary investigation of intra- and inter-individual variation in the ratios of biogenic isotopes of strontium (87Sr/86Sr), carbon (δ13C), and oxygen (δ18O) in the tooth enamel of domestic animals consumed at the site. 87Sr/86Sr ratios in the teeth of sheep and goats exhibit little intra- or inter-individual variation suggesting that most were raised locally while greater inter-individual variation in the teeth of cattle suggesting that nearly half of these animals were either raised further afield or were supplied with fodder raised elsewhere. δ13C values from these same samples in the teeth of sheep and goats exhibit considerable intra-individual variation suggesting of a seasonally variable diet incorporating significant wild forage while uniformly higher values in the teeth of cattle suggest that they consumed mostly agricultural produce throughout the year. δ18O values in the teeth of both sets of domestic livestock exhibit considerable intra-individual variation commensurate with the seasonal variation in temperature and rainfall characteristic of the region while variation between taxa is consistent with observed dietary differences. Taken together, our findings provide new information regarding the ways in which the domestic animals consumed at Bagasra were raised and obtained while establishing an empirical baseline necessary for further exploration of the land-use changes that may have accompanied the emergence and decline of South Asia's first urban civilization.

Indus Valley/Harappan Civilization Fell due to Climate Change 4,100 Years ago

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have demonstrated that an abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon affected northwest India 4,100 years ago. The resulting drought coincided with the beginning of the decline of the metropolis-building Indus Civilisation, which spanned present-day Pakistan and India, suggesting that climate change could be why many of the major cities of the civilisation were abandoned.

The research, reported online on 25 February, 2014, in the journal Geology, involved the collection of snail shells preserved in the sediments of an ancient lake bed. By analysing the oxygen isotopes in the shells, the scientists were able to tell how much rain fell in the lake where the snails lived thousands of years ago.

The results shed light on a mystery surrounding why the major cities of the Indus Civilisation (also known as the Harappan Civilisation, after Harappa, one of the five cities) were abandoned. Climate change had been suggested as a possible reason for this transformation before but, until now, there has been no direct evidence for climate change in the region where Indus settlements were located.

Moreover, the finding now links the decline of the Indus cities to a documented global scale climate event and its impact on the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Early Bronze Age civilisations of Greece and Crete, and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, whose decline has previously been linked to abrupt climate change.

"We think that we now have a really strong indication that a major climate event occurred in the area where a large number of Indus settlements were situated," said Professor David Hodell, from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences. "Taken together with other evidence from Meghalaya in northeast India, Oman and the Arabian Sea, our results provide strong evidence for a widespread weakening of the Indian summer monsoon across large parts of India 4,100 years ago."

Hodell together with University of Cambridge archaeologist Dr Cameron Petrie and Gates scholar Dr Yama Dixit collected Melanoides tuberculata snail shells from the sediments of the ancient lake Kotla Dahar in Haryana, India. "As today, the major source of water into the lake throughout the Holocene is likely to have been the summer monsoon," said Dixit. "But we have observed that there was an abrupt change, when the amount of evaporation from the lake exceeded the rainfall – indicative of a drought."

At this time large parts of modern Pakistan and much of western India was home to South Asia's great Bronze Age urban society. As Petrie explained: "The major cities of the Indus civilisation flourished in the mid-late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC. Large proportions of the population lived in villages, but many people also lived in 'megacities' that were 80 hectares or more in size – roughly the size of 100 football pitches. They engaged in elaborate crafts, extensive local trade and long-ranging trade with regions as far away as the modern-day Middle East. But, by the mid 2nd millennium BC, all of the great urban centres had dramatically reduced in size or been abandoned."

Many possible causes have been suggested, including the claim that major glacier-fed rivers changed their course, dramatically affecting the water supply and the reliant agriculture. It has also been suggested that an increasing population level caused problems, there was invasion and conflict, or that climate change caused a drought that large cities could not withstand long-term.

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