The cradle of civilization? 🏺

One of our favorite topics at the Daily Concept is ancient history.

We’ve written a lot about the early civilizations of the Ancient Near East, covering the Library of Alexandria and the collapse of Bronze Age Civilizations in recent newsletters.

Today’s newsletter covers a lesser-known ancient civilization whose discovery lead many historians & archaeologists to reconsider how and why ancient societies emerged: the Indus Valley Civilization.

The Indus Valley Civilization existed between 3,300 BC and 1,300 BC in what is modern-day India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

In the 1830’s, a British explorer who deserted from his post in the British East India Company discovered the ruins of Harappa, the largest Indus Valley city, while tracing the campaigns of Alexander the Great’s army in India.

Thirty years later, British archaeologists began to seriously survey the Indus Valley ruins. Over time, they realized that the ruins were far older than they initially believed.

The discovery revealed a sophisticated network of Bronze Age cities and settlements with sophisticated irrigation systems and some of the world’s first-known urban sanitation systems.

Some of the cities housed up to 60,000 people and reached their peak around 2,600 BCE. Historians estimate that as many as 4-6 million people lived in the Indian subcontinent during the peak of the Indus Valley Civilization.

According to historians, the Indus Valley Civilization qualified as a “full-fledged civilization” based on their advanced writing system and their participation in long-distance trade networks. (see below)

Indus-era artifacts have been found throughout the Middle East, showing that Indus traders went as far west as the Mediterranean Sea.

The Indus Valley Civilization was technologically advanced for its time. The people of Harappa were believed to be some of the first to use wheeled vehicles.

They also established systems for storing rainwater and irrigation that were more advanced than those found in other ancient sites.

Over 1,500 sites have been discovered, making the Indus Valley Civilization the largest-known ancient civilization during this period.

The civilization developed a written language, but historians and archaeologists are still not able to read it. 

This makes it more mysterious and less well-known than the Bronze Age civilizations in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Both of these civilizations had writing systems that were deciphered after the Rosetta Stone (pictured below) was discovered in 1799.

Some of the cities in the Indus Valley Civilization were built along straight streets and in grid patterns.

This has led some scholars to believe that the cities were products of central planning.

Due to its grid-like structure, Pakistani historian Ahmad Hasan Dani said that the 4,500-year-old Indus Valley city of Moenjodaro was:

However, there is no evidence of religious or political authorities that would usually be expected to design and carry out such large scale plans.

Unlike the ancient cities of the Mesopotamia, which were built around ziggurats or palaces from which local leaders governed the cities and surrounding areas, Indus Valley cities lacked central organizing structures.

While some houses were larger than others, dwellings of all sizes were connected to drainage systems in settlements where the technology was available.

Evidence like this has led some scholars to think Indus Valley society was unusually egalitarian compared to other ancient civilizations.

One historian described the difference between Indus Valley civilization and other ancient civilizations that existed at the time.

Historians believe that the Indus Valley Civilization provides a counter-example to other civilizations of the time that featured:

• increased concentration of wealth among the elites

• greater professional specialization

• clearly defined social hierarchies separating the ruling class from the people

The civilization’s end:

So, what happened to the Indus Valley Civilization?

Like other civilizations of the time, the Indus Valley Civilization seems to have fallen apart during what has been called the Bronze Age Collapse.

The Indus Valley Civilization was able to thrive because of the development of organized agriculture, which could feed a growing population.

A major drought in the region likely led to a decline of agricultural outputs, which encouraged instability as the area’s people began to fight over dwindling resources.

This may have made the Indus Valley cities more vulnerable to invasion or collapse, with evidence showing that these cities were no longer inhabited by 1,300 BC.

To conclude, the Indus Valley Civilization is an fascinating and understudied part of ancient history.

The civilization’s seemingly egalitarian characteristics confounded earlier theories that wealth concentration and social hierarchies triggered the emergence of urban civilizations, raising fundamental questions about how and why early humans organized themselves politically and socially.

ART OF THE DAY

The Song of the Lark, by Jules Breton. 1884.