ARC 1010 - Settlements and the Beginnings of Urbanisation

Indus Civilisation: Neolithic Beginnings to the rise of Harappa

• The archaeological ‘discovery’ of the great Induscivilisation, sometimes also called Harappan civilisation
• Beginnings in Neolithic Baluchistan
• New terminologies – Regionalisation and Integration
• Early Harappan ‘Regional’ sites and transition to the ‘Integrated’ cities of the Mature Harappan

20th century
1902 - 

• Lord Curzon (Viceroy) appoints John Marshall as new D-G of ASI
• New era – Marshall (experienced in Greek archaeology) developed excavation, architectural conservation, epigraphy, museums and publication
• Most important contribution – discovery of the Indus civilisation

1928 – 

• Marshall retires
• Marshall – 26 years old when appointed

• In 1902 the discovery of the Indus civilisation v imp. Before the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro the earliest secure date in the history of India and Pakistan was 326 BC when Alexander the Great made his incursions into the NW provinces of the sub-continent.
• Sir Alexander Cunningham, first D-G ASI (Director-General, Archaeological Survey of India),visited Harappa in the 1850’s and traced ‘the remains of flights of stairs on both the eastern and western faces of the high mound .... as well as the basement of a large square building.’ He also noticed the large scale removal of bricks from the site to ‘furnish brick ballast for about 100 miles of the Lahore and Multan railway.’
• Cunningham acquired stamp seals from site Marshall examined the seals with Bahadur Sahni, and in 1920 began more serious investigations at Harappa incl excavations on the mound that Cunningham visited. More seals  found in deep stratigraphic contexts (archaeological layers). Marshall began to believe that the Harappan seals belonged to a much older period, long before Alexander the Great.
• During similar excavations at Mohenjo-daro another high double-mound layout was identified and further stamp seals were found.
• By 1924 Marshall knew smth important about the two sites and scholars pointed out the similarities between material from the Indus valley and material from Mesopotamian sites. This lead to the realisation that these cities were as ancient as the civilisations of Sumer and Egypt pt of larger civ

• Research continuing from Marshall by Stuart Piggott and Mortimer Wheeler, and D.H. Gordon concluded that the city sites of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro must have resulted from the migration (diffusion) of the‘idea of civilisation’ from West Asia (Wheeler 1953)
• Suggested that immigrants from West Asia broughtknowledge of ‘civilized living’ and ‘were able by theirdrive and vision to establish within the matter of a hundred or so years the pattern of a culture whichwas to endure for a thousand’ (Gordon 1960)
• 0 idea poss for ind dev in India, now know v diff
• Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, came new survey work in Pakistan and the discovery and excavation of the site of Mehrgarh
• the story of the Indus we know starts + earlier in Neolithic Baluchistan - range of hills west of Indus Valley and on edge of Iranian plateau 

• Excavated over many seasons by team lead by J-F Jarrige of the Musee Guimet, Paris
• 15/16 years exc. 
• Multi-phase neolithic community habitation on banks of Bolan river at meeting of Baluchistan highlands and Indus plain

• 7000-4300 BCE (Possehl)
• 1/50 sites in Baluch region, incl: 

Mehrgarh: Period I

• aceramic
• Mud-brick rectangular houses divided into small rooms
• Compartmentalised storage units without doors
• Native (natural) copper
• Blades, cores and flint debitage
• Domestictaion of cereals (barley, wheat , oats) and animals (cattle, sheep, goat) in progress
• Trade connections bring lapis lazuli , chank (shell) and turquoise
• Open-pit ochre burials

Mehrgarh: period II 5500BCE

• Introduction of pottery (painted pottery), first hand and then wheel-made
• Cotton seeds
• Settlement size increases

• 4300-3200 BCE (Possehl)
• c. 650 sites incl:

Mehrgarh period III

• Mass production of wheel-made pottery
• Standardisation of pot shapes Stone tools shift from microliths to bulkier tools
• Innovation in metallurgy – copper and crucibles, use of gold Changes in burial practices
• Increased sites in Baluchistan Movement of farmers across Indus into Punjab (E fringes of Thar desert) Increased sites to north in Bannu Basin and Swat Valley (Northern Neolithic)
• Figurines and pottery: Baluchistan neolithic sites 
• Steatite beads; lapis lazuli; turquoise; wheel-made painted pots; clay figurines; bricks

• 3200-2600 BCE (Possehl)
• Also now called Regionalisation Era
• Expansion into Lower Indus Valley (Potwar Plateau, Sindh, Punjab, Haryana, N. Rajastan, Gujurat)
• Spread of farming and herding to sea- coast.
• Continued population growth and maturation of agricultural practices.
• Modest attempts at fortifications
• Little evidence for social stratification or craft specialisation

• two or three levels of settlement hierarchy, large regional centers, smaller villages, and camps of pastoral communities or traders
• Regions share traits such as pottery style - cultural characteristics seen in changing pottery styles
• Early Harappan / Regionalisation Era 
• Notable pottery groupings and types are: Amri/Nal (SE), Kot Diji (C Indus), and Hakra (N now dried course of Ghaggar/Hakra river)

• Finest prehistoric wares in South Asia
• Fired buff-pink with light buff slip
• Black and polychrome designs (red, pink, yellow) Characteristic vessels – canisters and straight sided bowls
• Amri = regional centre

• Continuity, regional characteristics and increasing social complexity at sites such as Mehrgarh and Nausharo in Baluchistan
• Differentiation between proto-urban sites such as Kot Diji, Harappa and Kalibangan and smaller, farming villages in their hinterland
• Suggestions of trade, networking and administration in graffiti, non-script markings and occasional seals
• ... but still small scale eg. Kalibangan is 4 hectares in Early Harrappan and rapidly expands to 11.5 hectares in the mature Harappan
• ... and grafitti and seals are different to those that appear and dominate in the Mature Harappan

• 2600-2500BCE
• Relatively short period of change and disruption
• Pt 1 of Integration Era

• 2500-1900BCE
• New forms of pottery appear Increased metal wares, bronze appears Baked-brick technology
• Brick-lined wells
• Complex bead drilling technology Square stamp seals appear
• Beginnings of writing/script
• Massive mud ‘fortification’ walls
• Street planning
• Move from regional clans and lineages to more complex social structures
• Pt 2 of Integration Era

period of state level control and stratification, major changes in social organization, bringing together diverse populations in cities or large settlements.

• large settlements increase insize to become ‘cities’
• Mohenjo-daro – 200+ha, Harappa – 150+ha, Dholavira – 100ha
• smaller sites – 5-10ha Amri, Lothal; 1-5ha Balakot, Kot Diji
• planned settlements based on grid pattern (?)
• similar city layouts based on raised citadel complex and a lower city
• fired mud-brick used in large cities
• walled settlements
• MHD real standardisation of brick sizes based on 1:2:4 ratio (7x14x28cm for houses, 10x20x40cm for city walls)
• houses with staircases to 2nd floors; ceilings at 3m; carved wooden door and window frames; latticework grilles and frequent house renovations
• individual houses and groups of houses have bathing areas and toilets; floor drains connect to external sewerage drains; terracotta drain pipes lead to brick-lined mains drains discharging outside city (and towns)
• bathing places may have ritualistic purposes as well as hygiene

• 5km from Indus; est. Population of 40,000
• Citadel – artificial mound/platform of mud & mud-brick (400x200m), has ‘Great bath’, ‘granary’ and ‘college of priests’
• Lower Town – divided into blocks; houses of varied size; seals and ‘Priest King’ found in Lower Town; 700 wells
• renovation/repairs = ownership, tenureship someone trying to make it theirs (?)
• entire city drainage (!) starting at homes covered w limestone blocks
• still X know enough about MHD auth/soc/socstruc
• lower towns (DK area) and citadel
• + stuff in DK area (stairs, high rooms, windowless, rebuilds and repairs, narrow streets, wells)
• citadel artificial super fancy labels discovered
• high level sophistication, human scale of building/architecture

• has Citadel mound
• has granaries but no grains found
• ‘workmens quarters’ on separate mound
• covered drains

• Similar layout to Harappa and Mohenjo-daro with Citadel mound to west and lower town to the east
• First occupied in Early Harappan (Kot Diji phase)
• Re-occupied in Mature Harappan and earlier settlement becomes citadel mound
• Plan similar to Mohenjo-daro, streets not aligned with walls

• Eastern gate
• Water ‘tank’
• Northern gate
• Coastal site in Rann of Kutch
• Uses sandstone more than brick
• Layout unlike other core Harappan sites

• now 19km inland but was on coast
• distinctive structure is ‘dockyard’ (215x35m) with sluice gate and spill channel
• small scale

• Clay figurines and models
• Beads and bangles
• Painted wheel-thrown pottery
• Seals and stamps with script
• Standardized weights
• Very few ‘works of art’
• v sparse compared to Mesopotamia
• love beads but small scale
• faience beads = fused glass, proto-glass
• E domestic size/scale/expression, like toys 
• relig auth not expressed in art
• seals + attn to detail, quality v finetell abt pol/soc, econ/trade, but X read them
• extent of art in Indus civ = 4 small objects

• The idea of a great civilisation followed the discovery of the city sites of the Indus– Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
• First thought to result from cultural ‘diffusion’ from the great cities ofMesopotamia
• As archaeological data has been gathered, we now know that these great cities developed slowly from early neolithic farming villages in Baluchistan (Mehrgarh)
• Processes of increasing social complexity and gradual urbanisation saw demographic expansion into the Indus valley, with regional towns and ceramic types – once called the Early Harappan period but now called the Regionalisation era
• The shorter, intense period of the Mature Harappan (now called the Integration era) saw cultural convergence of the regional pattern and the establishment of major cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro and the standardisation of many aspects of urban life

The Indus Civilisation is characterised by: 

• Walled settlements
• Cities divided into raised citadel mounds with monumental buildings and
• lower residential towns with grid plans
• Purpose-designed and managed water supply and drainage systems
• Standardised brick sizes
• Family-scale domestic units
• A script used to communicate trade and exchange (undeciphered)

• The Indus cities fell into steep decline and the centralised authorities (as yet not known) that ensured their smooth running collapsed for reasons not yet fully explained
• Following the collapse, settlement numbers increased but settlement size decreased (cities replaced by towns replaced by villages) and moved gradually eastwards
• This final phase is now known as the Localization era

• Things start to go wrong in the cities
• MHD begins to decline by 2200BC and settlement ended by 2000BC
• pace of decline varies – slow decline at MHD and Dholavira but rapid at Kalibangan and Banawali
• many postulated reasons for the decline• traumatic invasion by ‘Aryans’ from NW(now discounted)
• Environmental disasters (flood, drought, river course change, disease) not yet established but silt layers at MHD indicate multiple flooding
• major decline in settlements in western areas but increase in eastern areas @ varying speeds X traumatic
• Indus GONE 
• pop X change in size but decline in city living go to live in towns/villages