Online

Online articles on the ancient Indus Valley civilization, usually available as a PDF on another site like Academia.edu.

Large-Scale, Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing of Palaeo-River Networks: A Case Study from Northwest India and its Implications for the Indus Civilisation

Wikipedia defines a paleo-channel as "a remnant of an inactive river or stream channel that has been filled or buried by younger sediment. The sediments that the ancient channel is cut into or buried by can be unconsolidated, semi-consolidated, consolidated or lithified." Fascinating work by the Mc… >

Dilmun-Meluhhan Relations Revisited in Light of Observations on Early Dilmun Seal Production during the City IIa-c Period (c. 2050-1800 BC)

Eric Oldijam

A fascinating article from the mammoth Walking with the Unicorn book that delves into the brief, intense life of ancient Indus-inspired seals in Dilmun (Bahrain) around 2000 BCE. The authors use the unique and extensive evidence from this Gulf civilization to to draw some important inferences about… >

Who Holds the Keys? Identifying Female Administrators at Shahr-i Sokhta

Marta Ameri

Although not directly concerned with the ancient Indus civilization, this eye-opening article challenges many assumptions one might have about ancient societies being ruled or dominated by men. >

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 clear… >

Mohenjo-Daro’s Small Public Structures: Heterarchy, Collective Action and a Re-visitation of Old Interpretations with GIS and 3D Modelling

Adam S. Green

A fascinating article that shows how old excavation records together with recent computer modeling techniques can be used to show how a constructed space changed over time, and how that evidence can speak to larger issues in a society. >

Materializing Harappan identities: unity and diversity in the borderlands of the Indus Civilization

Brad Chase

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? >

Konar Sandal South, Nindowari, and Lakhan Jo daro - Beyond the Limits of a Known World

Rita P. Wright

"What were the limits of the known world to the people that inhabited this region during the long prehistory for which we have evidence? What changes did they and their successors experience? What more can we say about the lure of distant lands?" >

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

Paolo Biagi

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). >

Indus Seals and Glyptic Studies: An Overview

Asko Parpola

A proof of this upcoming survey article by the dean of Indus script scholarship, Asko Parpola, is now available on Academia.edu; it will be published in the highly anticipated Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 2018). >

Decorated Carnelian Beads from the Indus Civilization Site of Dholavira (Great Rann of Kachchha, Gujarat)

V. N. Prabhakar

A detailed review of the carnelian beads found in Dholavira, among the most striking of all ancient Indus manufactured goods. >