The Antiquity of Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC)
Context:
A new study published in a prestigious journal suggests that the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) is significantly older than previously believed.
Radiocarbon dating of archaeological remains from Bhirrana (Haryana) indicates that the civilisation could be over 8,000 years old, predating both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations.
Key Findings:
Experts have divided the civilisation into four ‘phases:
An Early Ravi Phase (~5.7-4.8 thousand years before present)
Transitional Kot Diji phase (~4.8-4.6 thousand years before present)
Mature phase (~4.6-3.9 ka thousand years before present)
Late declining (painted Grey Ware) phase (3.9-3.3 thousand years before present).
First two phasesàpastoral and early village farming communities.
Mature Harappan settlements were highly urbanized with several organized cities, developed material and craft culture having trans-Asiatic trading to regions as distant as Arabia and Mesopotamia.
Late Harappan phase witnessed large scale deurbanization, population decrease, abandonment of many established settlements, lack of basic amenities, interpersonal violence and disappearance of Harappan script,
Ghaggar-Hakra valley.
The site is located along the dried-up bed of the Saraswati, which was mentioned as ‘Sapta Sindhu’ in the Rig veda.
The Saraswati later dried up. Today, it is identified with the Ghaggar-Hakra paleochannel.
Along the Ghaggar-Hakra, early Harappan settlements flourished.
The new findings push this date back, suggesting the settlement at Bhirrana began as early as the 8th millennium BCE.
Bhirrana was part of a high concentration of settlements along the dried-up bed of the river known as ‘Saraswati’ in the Vedas.
Decline of IVC:
The study challenges the theory that the civilisation collapsed abruptly due to a catastrophic climate event (like the drying up of a river).
Instead, it proposes a gradual decline driven by adapting to shifting monsoon patterns.
As the monsoon weakened, Harappans shifted their crop patterns.
They moved away from water-intensive crops like wheat and barley (winter crops) to drought-resistant varieties like rice and millet.
The shift to drought-resistant crops necessitated a change in settlement patterns.
Unlike wheat and barley, which supported large centralized urban granaries, the new crops were better suited for smaller, decentralized farming communities.
This agricultural transition led to de-urbanisation, causing the large cities to gradually depopulate as people moved to smaller rural settlements, marking the decline of the mature Harappan phase.