Iconography of the Indus Unicorn: Origins and Legacy
A detailed look at the unicorn icon on Indus objects, incorporating the latest findings, even incomplete ones like the unicorn figurines shown from Ganweriwala.
Ancient Indus civilization articles which can be downloaded and read as PDF files from this site.
Manufacturing and trade of Asian elephant ivory in Bronze Age Middle Asia. Evidence from Gonur Depe (Margiana, Turkmenistan)
An exceptionally interesting paper that traces the path of ivory carving from the ancient Indus civilization up north to Gonur Depe in southern Turkmenistan, north of Afghanistan.
Artifact Reuse and Mixed Archaeological Contexts in Chatrikhera, Rajasthan
"Studying the reuse and recycling of artifacts in contemporary contexts aids in the understanding of such actions in the past," write the authors (p. 486), who provide ample evidence that this is the case and offer another lens through which one can interrogate archaeological findings
Early Villages from Baluchistan to Western Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat
There are not many comprehensive summaries of the development of agriculture in the western subcontinent. This 50 page piece from the book History of Ancient India II: Protohistoric Foundations (2014) is a welcome exception and explores the development of early agricultural villages from Balochistan to Gujarat and their role in the rise of the Harappan Civilization.
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
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
Indus zoomorphism and its avatars
A technical paper which rewards the follower with valuable insights and serves, on a platter as it were, some complex puzzles in Indus iconography for further cogitation to the reader.
Lithic Blade Implements and their Role in the Harappan Chalcolithic Cultural Development in Gujarat
Lithic (stone) tools were the machine tools of the Bronze Age. This very well-written article shows how "the study of stylistic difference and technological continuities and discontinuities observed in lithic assemblages at ancient sites can provide important new information regarding the spread and development of Harappan Civilization as well as about other regional Chalcolithic cultures."
Taphonomy and labour at the Indus Valley site of Harappa (3700–1300 BC)
This is a complex paper that addresses an important issue in the emergence of cities during the Bronze Age: how were people in new and developing urban centers fed? As the authors put it crisply: "The populations of urban sites such as Harappa required substantial food supplies."
Meluhha and Agastya: Alpha and Omega of the Indus Script
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.
Segmentation of Indus Texts
A statistical analysis by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Team.