Transcript Indus River Valley - Ms. Byrne's Social Studies Class Website

Indus River Valley
Ancient India
Geography
• Located in modern day
Pakistan
• Rich agricultural lands
surrounded by highlands,
mountains, deserts, and
the ocean
• Developed in the area
known as the Indian
Floodplain
Indus River Valley
• It was named after the city of Harappa.
Harappa and the city of Mohenjo-Daro
were important cities.
• This Indus Valley “civilization” flourished
around 4000-1000 BCE
Other River Civilizations Locations
Early Harappan-Ravi Phase
3300-2800 BCE
• Trade networks linked
culture with related regional
cultures and distant sources
of raw materials
• Domesticated crops
included peas, sesame
seeds, dates and cotton.
• Domestic animals also
used, such as the water
buffalo
Middle Harappan-Integration Era
2600-1900 BCE
• By 2500 BCE,
communities had been
turned into urban centers.
• Over 1052 cities and
settlements have been
found
• Irrigation used to increase
crop production and mud
brick structures.
Late Harappan 1700-1300 BCE
• Cremation of human remains
• The bones were stored in painted
pottery burial urns
• Reddish pottery, painted in black
with shapes and designs with
different surface treatments to the
earlier period.
• Expansion of settlements into the
east
• Rice became a main crop
• Apparent breakdown of the
widespread trade of the Indus
civilization, with materials such as
marine shells no longer used.
Natural Resources
• The Indus Valley
contained numerous
natural resources that
were an important part of
Harappan civilization.
• Resources included:
– Fresh water and timber
– Materials such as gold,
silver, semi-precious
stones.
City Plans
• Houses had flat roofs and were
just about identical
• Each was built around a
courtyard, with windows
overlooking the courtyard.
• The outside walls had no
windows.
• Each home had its own private
drinking well and its own
private bathroom.
• Clay pipes led from the
bathrooms to sewers located
under the streets.
• These sewers drained into
nearly rivers and streams.
Language
• The Indus (or
Harappan) people used
a pictographic script.
• Some 3500 examples of
this script survive in
stamp seals carved in
stone, in molded
terracotta and faience
amulets, in fragments of
pottery, and in a few
other categories of
inscribed objects.
Economy-Trade
• The Harappan civilization
was mainly urban and
based on trading.
• Inhabitants of the Indus
valley traded with
Mesopotamia, southern
India, Afghanistan, and
Persia for gold, silver,
copper, and turquoise.
Economy-Agriculture
• Irrigation systems were
used to take advantage of
the fertile grounds along the
Indus River.
• Walls were built to control
the river's annual flooding.
• Crops grown included
wheat, barley, peas,
melons, and sesame.
• This civilization was the first
to cultivate cotton for the
production of cloth.
Collapse of Harappan
“Civilization”
• The de-urbanization period of the Harappan
Civilization saw the collapse and disappearance of
the urban phenomena in the South Asia.
• The theme for this period is localization.
• Architectural and ceramic forms changed along with
the loss of writing, planned settlements, public
sanitation, monumental architecture, seaborne and
exotic trade, seals, and weights.
Four Theories of Collapse
• Three theories are based on ecological factors: intense
flooding, decrease in precipitation, and the dessication of
the Sarasvati River.
• The fourth hypothesis is that of the Aryan Invasion,
proposed by Sir R. E. Mortimer Wheeler and Stuart
Piggott.
• Fourth largely abandoned in the 1940s in favor of a
combination of factors from ecological disasters.