mThe Study School, 2006 Runner Up

Children’s Theories - the decline of the Indus Civilisation

Evaluating the varied theories about the decline of the Indus Civilisation is a demanding task. They have an interesting history, illustrating changes in archaeology fashion and current controversies. Information about them in some commercially produced books for children may omit, or confusingly, present the ideas as fact, not theory.

The children went much further than the KS2 requirement to understand that there are different ways to interpret evidence, and had a stab at evaluating the theories, and developing their own interpretations.

In this case two children only looked at the Mortimer Wheeler (last massacre by alleged invaders) and environmental theories ( floods, earthquakes, rivers drying etc).Their work was a product of thorough discussion. Whilst one concluded Wheeler was correct, they both synthesised the environmental theories, having given examples of the evidence put forward, to explain why attacking invaders were successful in a civilisation possible weakened by other disasters. (Wheeler also hedged his bets this way!) One developed imaginative scenarios by asking what effect the environmental disasters might have on trade and resulting conflict with surrounding tribes.

Shereen Ratnagar's intriguing theory of political crisis with consequences for trade,
law and order and civic life, was not used. It is a good one for children to compare with others. They can be asked to construct alternative scenarios around the 38 skeletons of Mohenjo-daro that Wheeler suggested were the remaining evidence of his massacre, debunked by the next archaeology generation.