The apparently sudden appearance of Indus-type seals, pottery and other implements around 2000 BCE in the Arabian Gulf, just before the Indus cities and culture seems to have gone into decline, is a great mystery.

"In the study of the archaeology of early complex societies in archaeology three questions concerning power are of interest: (1) Who had power? (2) Why did they have power? And (3) How was power exercised? "

Although cemeteries and burial analysis of Indus peoples is sparse, the authors write, "however, important insights have been gleaned from available mortuary populations. Previous morphological and strontium isotope studies of skeletal material at the sites of Harappa and Lothal suggest residence change may have been common for certain individuals and that increased mobility facilitated gene flow with hinterland groups."

"This research project focuses on the Ghaggar plains, which occupies the north-eastern corner of the Indus society, in order to understand the temporal change of craft production through time from the Indus urban period to the post-urban period in this region. As a part of the project, faience objects have been subjected to a series of scientific analyses to identify their raw materials and production technology" (p. 1) write the authors.

An interesting series of reflections on how we have viewed the ancient Indus through the prism of whatever archaeological priorities or worldviews were in fashion then, and how the evidence, slowly, can push against these preconceptions.

What did ancient Indus people eat? What kind of crops did they grow? What did they cook? How might these things differ by city, town and region? To even get close to answering these questions, one needs a "a systematic collation of all primary published macrobotanical data, regardless of their designation as ‘crop’, ‘fully domesticated’ or ‘wild/weedy’ species," writes author Jennifer Bates.

"When we speak of Harappan material style, we need to include the whole package of raw material, technological know-how as well as shape and pattern," writes Dr. Heidi J. Miller, who goes on to present "a preliminary study of what defines a Harappan phase ceramic assemblage by comparing the assemblages from the sites of Harappa in the Punjab, Mohenjo-daro and the smaller site of Chanhu-daro, both in Sindh, and illustrating what is shared amongst these contemporary occupations."

It has really only been since the 1980s that a more comprehensive picture of the wide and deep roots of Indus civilization in the larger Sindh and Balochistan region have become apparent. Mehrgarh did not spring out of nowhere but was embedded in a region where fishing, shell collecting, flint mining and other crafts were present and flourishing at different times.

The authors take on the complex question of how Harappan or Indus culture made its presence felt in Gujarat from about the middle of the third millennium through the decline of Indus civilization six or seven hundred years later. How did Indus traditions as expressed in material culture and the manufacture of these objects relate to what we see in Indus cities like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa?

Another look at the "Mother Goddess" interpretation of female figurines from the ancient Indus Valley, in this case those remarkable ones with various elaborate headdresses. Once again, an author, this time in Australia, comes away unimpressed by this simplistic equation.

The authors write that "the discovery of a knapped stone assemblage with microlithic backed tools and geometrics represents a groundbreaking point for the prehistory of Punjab. It opens new research perspectives in a promising territory that had never been explored before, where surveys are undoubtedly to be continued in the future because of its great potential."

The relationship between ancient Indus centers - which we know best and consider a hallmark of the civilization - and the vast rural "hinterland" that surrounded them is the subject of this lucid paper.