Module-002

ü The Easternmost site of Indus Valley is Alamgirpur in UP

Alamgirpur, located in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, is the easternmost known site of the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1300 BC), specifically from the Harappan-Bara period. The discovery extended the known eastern boundary of the Indus Valley Civilization into the Ganga-Yamuna Doab.

ü The Northernmost site of Indus Valley is Shortugai in Afghanistan

Shortugai, located in northern Afghanistan’s Darqad District, is the northernmost known settlement of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) on the Amu Darya (Oxus) river near lapis lazuli mines. It functioned as a Harappan trading colony linked to lapis lazuli, tin, and camel trade.

ü Cemetery H culture is later Bronze age culture, towards end of Indus Valley

The Cemetery H culture (c. 1900–1300 BCE) was a late Bronze Age phase of the Indus Valley Civilization localized in Punjab, named after a cemetery at Harappa. It developed from the northern Indus Valley Civilization around 1700 BCE and is linked biologically to earlier Harappan populations. It shows cultural traits associated with the Swat culture, indicating early Indo-Aryan migrations into the Indian subcontinent. The culture practiced cremation, the earliest archaeological evidence of this in India, aligning with Rigvedic references. Painted funerary urns feature motifs interpreted as Vedic symbols, such as peacocks symbolizing souls and hounds linked to Yama, the god of death. Cemetery H, along with Gandhara grave and Ochre Coloured Pottery cultures, contributed to the formation of Vedic civilization. It is not considered responsible for the decline of Harappan urban centers.

ü Charles Masson

Charles Masson, pseudonym of James Lewis (1800–1853), was the first European to discover the ruins of Harappa near Sahiwal, Punjab. He identified the ancient city of Alexandria in the Caucasus (modern Begram, Afghanistan), linked to Alexander the Great. Masson deciphered the extinct Kharoshthi script and collected around 47,000 coins from over 50 Buddhist sites in Afghanistan between 1833-1838.

ü Indus Valley had no temples – The continuity to Hinduism is seen doubtfully.

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC, 3300–1300 BCE) religion remains largely speculative due to undeciphered script and sparse evidence. Unlike contemporaneous Egypt and Mesopotamia, IVC lacks monumental temples or palaces, suggesting religious practices were likely domestic or open-air. The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro is widely considered a site for ritual purification. Funerary practices included fractional burial and cremation. Iconography on seals often features single animals; complex seals show horned, possibly divine figures, but identifications such as proto-Shiva (Pashupati) are now rejected by modern scholars. The “Mother Goddess” terracotta figurines are debated, with recent scholarship rejecting their identification as fertility deities or links to Shaktism. The so-called “Priest-King” statuette is now viewed skeptically, with modern consensus favoring an egalitarian society. Swastika symbols appear on seals but likely served mercantile or administrative purposes rather than religious ones; their continuity with later Hinduism is unproven. Some IVC motifs parallel Mesopotamian iconography, including the Master of Animals and Gilgamesh themes, indicating cultural exchanges. Theories linking IVC religious symbols (lingams, yonis) to later Hindu practices have been largely discredited. Overall, IVC religion shows no clear continuity with later Indian religions, and interpretations remain conjectural without script decipherment.

ü Dholavira is located on Tropic of Cancer, stone made, had stadium

Dholavira, located in Gujarat on the Tropic of Cancer, is one of the five largest and most prominent Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) sites, dating from c. 3500 BCE (Pre-Harappan) to c. 1800 BCE (Late Harappan). It features a unique pre-planned rectangular city layout with three divisions: citadel, middle town, and lower town, all built predominantly of stone, unlike other Harappan sites that used brick. Dholavira is renowned for its advanced water conservation system, including at least sixteen stone reservoirs and channels, the earliest known globally, designed to harvest and store rainwater in the arid Kutch region. Excavations revealed sophisticated urban planning, large reservoirs, a massive stepwell larger than Mohenjo-daro’s Great Bath, and a 3-meter-long gypsum signboard with ten Indus script symbols, one of the longest inscriptions found, indicating possible full literacy. The site also contains unique hemispherical mud-brick funerary structures resembling early Buddhist stupas and spoked wheel designs referenced in ancient Indian texts. Artifacts include seals with animal motifs without script, gold and copper ornaments, bronze tools, and evidence of trade links with Western Asia. Dholavira was officially discovered by ASI in 1967-68, excavated since 1990, and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021. Dholavita has given some of the oldest stadiums and sign board, built by the Harappan civilization. One of the stadiums, with terraced seats for spectators, around 800 feet in length (around 283 metres) can accommodate as many as 10,000 persons. The other stadium is much smaller in size.

ü Mehrgarh is 7000BC Old

Mehrgarh, located on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan, is one of South Asia’s earliest Neolithic sites (7000–5500 BCE) showing evidence of farming, herding, and proto-dentistry. Discovered in 1974, it reveals continuous occupation through eight periods, transitioning from aceramic Neolithic to ceramic Neolithic and Chalcolithic phases. Early inhabitants cultivated wheat, barley, and herded sheep, goats, and cattle, with the earliest evidence of cattle herding in South Asia dated to 7,000 years ago. Mehrgarh shows cultural links with the Near East but also suggests an independent local origin. The site produced the oldest known lost-wax copper amulet (6000 years old) and the earliest ceramic figurines in South Asia, initially female and later including males. Pottery evolved from handmade to wheel-thrown with intricate designs by Period III. Long-distance trade is evidenced by materials like lapis lazuli from Badakshan and seashells from distant coasts. Proto-dentistry with drilled molars dating back 7,500–9,000 years was practiced here. The site was largely abandoned around 2600–2000 BCE in favor of Nausharo during the mature Indus Valley Civilization. Burials include individual and collective types, with child urn burials dated 4000–3300 BCE. Metal use began by Period IIB with copper artifacts.

ü Ganeshwar was located in Copper Belt and supplied copper to IVC

Ganeshwar, located in Sikar district, Rajasthan, is a 4,000-year-old pre-Harappan Chalcolithic site near the Khetri copper belt. Excavated in 1977, it revealed three cultural phases: Period 1 (3800 BCE) with hunting-gathering and chert tools; Period 2 (2800 BCE) marking the start of copper metallurgy and fired clay pottery; Period 3 (2000 BCE) showing advanced pottery, copper goods, Painted Grey Ware, and iron. Over 1,000 copper artifacts including arrowheads, spearheads, fish hooks, bangles, and chisels were found. Ganeshwar culture supplied copper to the Harappan civilization but did not urbanize. The copper was sourced from the nearby Aravalli Range.

ü Surkotada is known for Bones of Horse

Surkotada, a small fortified Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) site in Kutch, Gujarat, covers 1.4 hectares and was occupied continuously for 400 years (c. 2100–1700 BCE) in three cultural phases. It features mature Harappan urban planning with a citadel and residential complex, mud-brick fortifications, advanced drainage, and unique gate designs including straight entrances unlike typical staggered Harappan gates. The site’s occupation dates are later than most IVC sites, aligning with Lothal and Kalibangan, indicating Harappan expansion eastward. Surkotada may have functioned as a regional capital or garrison town, supporting a feudal administrative system. Notably, it provides some of the earliest evidence of true horse (Equus ferus caballus) bones in the IVC, though this identification is debated.

ü Daimabad in Maharshtra is on Pravara River

Daimabad, located on the Pravara River in Maharashtra, is a key archaeological site revealing five distinct Chalcolithic cultural phases with evidence of Late Harappan influence extending into the Deccan Plateau.

ü Decline of Indus Valley Civilisation

The civilisation’s decline is linked to climatic drying and river system changes, notably the Ghaggar-Hakra becoming seasonal around 4000 years ago.

ü Chanhudaro was a centre of bead making and copper tools

Chanhu-daro, located 130 km south of Mohenjo-daro in Sindh, Pakistan, was inhabited between 4000 and 1700 BCE and was a major Indus Valley Civilization site known for manufacturing carnelian beads. Excavated first in 1931 by N.G. Majumdar and later by American and French teams, it covers about 7 hectares with three low mounds forming a single settlement. The site featured extensive use of baked bricks, workshops, industrial quarters, and warehouses. It was a significant center for bead making using materials like carnelian, jasper, quartz, gold, copper, bronze, shell, terracotta, and faience. Chanhudaro produced copper tools and weapons, earning it the nickname “Sheffield of the British Empire.”

ü Ghaggar-Hakra River may or may not be Saraswati River

The Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent monsoon-fed river flowing through India and Pakistan, known as Ghaggar in India and Hakra in Pakistan’s Thar Desert. It was a tributary of the Sutlej River until the Sutlej changed course 8,000–10,000 years ago, leaving Ghaggar-Hakra as a seasonal river system. The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) flourished along its dried-up middle course between 2600–1900 BCE, with numerous archaeological sites found mainly in Pakistan’s Cholistan desert. Recent geological studies show Ghaggar-Hakra was not glacier-fed but monsoon-fed during Harappan times and dried up around 4,000 years ago due to declining monsoons, contributing to the IVC’s decline and eastward migration. The river is often identified with the Vedic Sarasvati River mentioned in the Rigveda, but this identification is debated; the Sarasvati described as a mighty, perennial Himalayan river likely corresponds to the Helmand River in Afghanistan, while Ghaggar-Hakra matches the “disappearing” Sarasvati of later Vedic texts.

ü Inamgaon on Ghod River is a Post Harappan Jorwe culture site

Inamgaon, located in Maharashtra along the Ghod River, is a key post-Harappan Chalcolithic archaeological site dated between 1800-1200 BCE, representing the Early and Late Jorwe and Malwa cultures.

ü Kalibangan has earliest ploughed fields, fire altars

Kalibangan, located in Rajasthan on the Ghaggar River, is a major Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) site showing both Early Harappan (Sothi-Siswal culture) and Mature Harappan phases. Excavated mainly between 1960-70 under B.B. Lal, it revealed the world’s earliest ploughed field (c. 2800 BCE) with a grid pattern still used today. The site features unique fire altars indicating fire worship, with no evidence of mother goddess worship, and is the only IVC site with such altars found in three groups: citadel, lower town, and a separate structure. Kalibangan had a well-planned grid layout with streets in set ratios, fortified mud-brick walls, and houses with courtyards and wells. The Early Harappan phase ended around 2600 BCE, likely due to an earthquake, one of the earliest archaeologically recorded. Pottery from this phase is classified into six fabrics, linked to Sothi-Siswal culture. The site also shows evidence of camel bones, wooden furrows, terracotta bangles (name meaning “black bangles”), toy carts, and three burial systems. Abandonment around 2650 BCE is attributed to drying of the Ghaggar River.

ü Sutkagan Dor is the westernmost IVC site

Sutkagen Dor is the westernmost known archaeological site of Indus Valley Civilization. It is located about 480 km west of Makran coast near the Iran border in Balochistan province of Pakistan. Sutkagen Dor would have been on the trade route from Lothal in Gujarat to Mesopotamia and was probably heavily involved in the fishing trade similar to that which exists today in the coast along Balochistan.

ü Banawali exhibits Bara Culture

Banawali, located in Haryana on the upper middle valley of the dried Sarasvati River, is a well-planned Indus Valley Civilization site excavated in 1974 by R.S. Bisht. Banawali exhibits Bara culture, considered post-Harappan or late contemporary Harappan.

ü Great Bath of Mohen jo Daro is earliest known public water tank.

The Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro, built in the third millennium BCE, is the earliest known public water tank in the ancient world, measuring 12m by 7m with a depth of 2.4m. It featured two wide staircases for entry, a watertight floor and walls made of finely fitted bricks with gypsum plaster, and a thick bitumen layer for waterproofing. Water was drained through a corbelled arch drain. Brick colonnades with stepped edges possibly held wooden screens.

ü John Marshall led excavations at Harappa and Mohen jo Daro

Sir John Hubert Marshall (1876–1958) was Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (1902–1928) and led excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, key sites of the Indus Valley Civilization. He introduced systematic cataloguing and conservation of monuments in India and trained Indian archaeologists, supporting Indian nationalism. Marshall began excavations at Taxila (1913–1934) and founded the Taxila Museum in 1918. He initiated Harappa excavations in 1920 with Daya Ram Sahni and Mohenjo-Daro excavations in 1922 after its discovery by R. D. Banerji. His 1924 publication revealed the Indus script and linked the civilization to Mesopotamia. However, Marshall’s excavation method ignored stratigraphy, mixing artifacts from different layers, a flaw later corrected by Mortimer Wheeler.

ü Mortimer Wheeler developed Wheeler Method

Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890–1976) was a pioneering British archaeologist and army officer, known for developing the “Wheeler method” of stratigraphic excavation emphasizing scientific rigor and controlled discovery. He led excavations at Harappa, Arikamedu, and Brahmagiri.

ü Indus script remains undeciphered

The Indus script, used by the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3500–1300 BCE), comprises over 400 to nearly 700 distinct pictorial and abstract signs found mainly on seals, pottery, and tools, with no known bilingual inscriptions to aid decipherment. It is generally read right to left and is believed to be logo-syllabic rather than purely phonetic. Despite over 100 decipherment attempts, no consensus exists; hypotheses link it to Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, or Munda languages, or consider it nonlinguistic symbols.

ü Lothal is world’s earliest known dockyard

Lothal, located in Gujarat, was one of the southernmost Indus Valley Civilization sites, established around 2300 BCE. It features arguably the world’s earliest known dockyard connected to the ancient Sabarmati River, facilitating trade between Sindh and the Kathiawar Peninsula, though some scholars contest its function as a dock.

ü Daya Ram Sahni, first DG of ASI supervised excavations at Harappa

Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni (1879–1939) was the first Indian Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (1931–1935). He supervised the first excavations at Harappa (1920–21), marking the beginning of Indus Valley Civilization archaeology. Sahni graduated with a gold medal in Sanskrit from Punjab University and was recruited by ASI due to his scholarship. He excavated key sites including Kasia, Rajgir, Rampurva, Saheth-Maheth (ancient Shravasti), Mandore, Parihaspore, Avantipur temples, and Harappa multiple times. The Indus Valley was discovered by Dayaram Sahni in 1921.

ü Racial identity of Indus Valley People remains complex

Indus Valley Civilization had been a combination of diverse racial elements. Certain nthropological investigations and examinations of the human remains show that four racial types existed in this civilization namely Proto-Australiod, Mediterranean, Alpinoid and the Mongoloid. Most of the people belonged to Mediterranean race.

ü IVC people did not know about Iron

Iron was not known to Indus Valley Civilization people. The first evidence of Iron is found about 1000 B.C. from Ataranjikhera in Etah district, UP (Vedic Civilization). Beads made for Gold and Silver were found in most of the places of Indus valley civilization. They knew about copper, tin, bronze, gold, silver but not Iron.

ü IVC was essentially an Urban Civilization

Indus Valley Civilization was urbanized, highly developed and sophisticated. The ruins exhibit high level of planning in the cities. Excavations have indicated that the buildings were built with baked bricks. The streets were well constructed at right angles with an elaborate and covered drainage system. The civilization also had public buildings including the vast granaries and the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro.

ü IVC script is known as Boustrophedon

Indus Scripts are popularly known as Boustrophedon scripts which are still not deciphered by the historians, researchers and scholars. The direction of the writing was from left to right & from right to left.

ü IVC sites and their River Banks

ü IVC knowledge of Lions Seems Doubtful

Animals like buffaloes, sheeps, pigs and the humped bull were bred. Animals like elephant, camels and dogs were also domesticated. Lion have not been found any where in Indus Valley civilisation where as the remains of horse have been found in Surkotada.

ü Only Mohen Jo Daro and Dholavira are UNESCO world Heritage Sites as of Now

Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) sites that are designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

Tentative UNESCO Sites (Proposed, Not Yet Inscribed):

ü The beads in IVC were made of various materials

The vast majority of the beads are made of fired steatite, which was a widely used raw material, beginning with the Ravi period and continuing through the Late Harappan period. Beads that are made of hard stone, such as Agate, Carnelian, are relatively less common, with a significant drop in numbers for stones, such as Lapis Lazuli, grossular garnet, serpentine and amazonite.

ü These are notable Pre-Harappan Cultures

ü These are Late / Post Harappan Cultures

ü These are also Post Harappan Cultures

ü The largest number of IVC sites found in post-independence India in Gujarat

The state which has accounted for highest number of Harappan sites after independence is Gujarat. Gujarat has been one of the main centre of the Indus Valley Civilization. It contains major ancient metropolitan cities from the Indus Valley such as Lothal, Dholavira, and Gola Dhoro.

ü Unicorn is the most common motif of the Indus seals

The unicorn is the most common motif on Indus seals and appears to represent a mythical animal that Greek and Roman sources trace back to the Indian subcontinent.

ü Main Trade Partners of IVC people were Mesopotamians

The people of Indus Valley Civilization mainly traded with the Mesopotamians. Dilmun and Makan were intermediate trading stations between Meluha and Mesopotamia. Meluha is the earliest name of Indus area. Other places given in the options are not related to Indus valley civilization.

ü Pulses seem to be unknown to IVC People

In Indus Valley Civilization, pulses were unknown. The chief food crops included wheat, barley, sesame, mustard, peas, etc. The evidence for rice has come from Lothal and Rangpur in the form of husks embedded in pottery. Cotton was another important crop. A piece of woven cloth has been found at Mohenjo-Daro. Apart from cereals, fish and animal meat also formed a part of the Harappan diet. Ragi was also not known to the Indus people.