In 2004 Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat (University of Illinois) and Michael Witzel (Harvard University) stunned the world of ancient Indus scholarship with the claim that the Indus sign system was not writing. Asko Parpola's work was a target of their critique. This is his response.
The first of a continuing series of articles by scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) undertaking a scientific analysis of Indus sign patterns.
Methods and results of a systematic attempt to decipher the Indus script as a logo-syllabic writing system with Proto-Dravidian as the underlying language are first outlined.
Indus Script: Search for Grammar is based on a lecture first given at the Chennai Seminar The Indus Script: Problems and Prospects in 2006 with an update in Dec. 2007.
A statistical analysis by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Team.
The Spread of Levalliosian Mousterian (600,000 BP and 40,000 BP) in the Indian Subcontinent.
A review of recent research and findings in Sindh, and a review of a book on the larger Paleolithic Settlement of Asia over the past 100,000 years.
Results from new discoveries of flint sites dating back to the 7th millennium (7000-6000 BCE) suggestive of sea-faring in the Arabian Sea thousands of years before the Indus Civilization.
Some 90 miles from Mohenjo-daro, one of the largest archaeological sites in the world is being destroyed after surviving for hundreds of thousands of years.
The discovery of shell-middens (mounds) in Las Bela, Balochistan, from roughly 8000 BCE raises the possibility of trade across the Arabian Sea during Neolithic times.
New radiocarbon dates from coastal sites in Lower Sindh and the adjoining Las Bela area in Balochistan from marine and mangrove shells and shell-middens at 11 sites.
A first description of the chipped stone assemblage collected by A.R. Khan at the fortified Amri settlement of the Tharro Hills in Sindh.
and their importance in the Middle Paleolithic of the Indian subcontinent
Some 7,000 years before the Indus civilization, there were flourishing communities in the area explains Dr. Biagi of Foscari Univerisity in Venice, Italy.
The resemblance between an inscribed terracotta dish from approximately 100 BCE and a three-sided tablet found in Harappa.
A proposed Indus sign reading of Muruku on a stone axe found in South India.
Iravatham Mahadevan explores a set of ancient Indus signs that he believes are related to agriculture using comparisons to signs in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations.
In a tour-de-force of interpretation, Iravatham Mahadevan attempts to interpret two of the most common ancient Indus signs using parallels from old Tamil.
In this paper, historical records about the Sidis and their own oral traditions will be critically examined to gain new perspectives on their complex history, beginning with their origins in Africa and with a special focus on their role in the agate bead industry.
The first section focuses on theoretical issues, the definition of terms and various interpretive biases regarding "ritual" artifacts in the prehistoric period, while the second half examines the important "ritual" artifacts of the Upper Palaeolithic hunter~gatherer populations in South Asia and discuss future directions for research.
The Mesolithic sites discovered during recent surveys carried out by the ‘Joint Rohri Hills Project’ (Biagi & Shaikh 1994) in the Thari District of Upper Sindh.
Highlights of excavations of the Ravi and Kot Diji levels at Harappa which illustrate the emergence of complex crafts and trade, with a special emphasis on interaction with Central Asia. It also presents the excavations and experimental studies on the production of faience and steatite tablets.
The large number and great variety of stone beads on the Bead TImeline make their origins and manufacture of special interest. Two factors define the process: the characteristics of the raw material being used; and the effort that a beadmaker wishes to expend.
In an ongoing attempt to understand how the now vanished people of the Indus culture ordered their society and to determine the sources of political, economic, military and ideological (religious) power in this remarkably extensive and urbanized state, the authors draw clues from the miscellaneous material they dig up and from the layout and architecture of the cities and settlements that were excavated.
