Paolo Biagi

Forgotten Islands of the Past: The Archaeology of the Northern Coast of the Arabian Sea

The author, who has been working in the larger region for decades exploring the long history of human habitation and industry going back tens of thousands of years, turns his attention to the geographic changes in the Indus delta region through the Bronze Age and what recent work shows us were the curious "islands" that once existed in lower Sindh (Dholavira, in Gujarat, is another example of such a later settlement).

Mining Bronze Age Stone Resources: Some examples from the Caucasus (Georgia) and Sindh (Pakistan)

Paolo Biagi

Archaeologists often assume that metals like bronze replaced the need for stone tools, but is this really the case given the evidence in these two areas not to mention select Mediterranean regions? In the Indus region, what was the use of these tools given their limited presence in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa?

Quarries in Harappa

Paolo Biagi

"Flint was the most important raw material exploited by the third millennium BCE Bronze Age inhabitants of the Indus Valley and its related territories." This uncompromising statement by a scholar and field researcher who has been working in the region for decades offers a window on what must

Short Report: A déjeté Levallois tool from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) and the role it plays in the chronology of the Pleistocene terraces of the Bannu Basin

Paolo Biagi

Very little is known about the subcontinent's history hundreds of thousands of years ago, say 300,000-30,000 years ago, which would have been the Middle Paleolithic period for example, except for small clues left at places like the Rohri chert (flint) mines and along the Indus in Sindh and else

Archaeology at Ras Muari: Sonari, A Bronze Age Fisher-Gatherers Settlement at the Hab River Mouth (Karachi, Pakistan)

Paolo Biagi

Italian archaeologists have been critical to unearthing the distant human past in Sindh and Balochistan for many years.

Prehistoric Fishing along the Coasts of the Arabian Sea: A Short Overview from Oman, Balochistan and Sindh (Pakistan)

Paolo Biagi

"The scope of this paper is to update and discuss the available evidence for prehistoric fishing along the Arabian Sea coasts of the Sultanate of Oman, Las Bela and Sindh in Pakistan," write the authors. By prehistoric they mean going back to at least the 7th millennium BCE (7000-6000 BCE).

The Prehistory of Sindh and Las Bela (Balochistan): Thirty years of surveys and excavations (1985-2014)

Paolo Biagi

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.

Mahiwala 1 (MW-1): a Mesolithic site in the Thal desert of Punjab (Pakistan)

Paolo Biagi

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."

Exploiting mangroves: Environmental changes and human interference along the northern coast of the Arabian Sea (Pakistan) during the Holocene

Paolo Biagi

This paper reviews the work done since the early 1970s east of Karachi along the Makran coast, containing what were once extensive mangrove areas (where salt and fresh water meet to create unique habitats).

Thirty Years of Archaeological Surveys and Excavations in Sindh and Las Bela (Balochistan)

Paolo Biagi

Another important summary paper by Paolo Biagi reprises all the discoveries made by Italian teams in Sindh and Balochistan that have upended our understanding of pre and neighbouring areas to the Indus civilization.

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