Articles on the evolution, growth and decline of urbanity and fluctuations or changes in over time within the ancient Harappan or Indus Valley Civilization and its antecedents.
The famous article on the weights at Chanhi-darho by A.S. Henny, from Ernest J.H. Mackay original excavation reports. Chanhu-daro was an Indus manufacturing town in Sindh excavated by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston starting in 1929. >
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. >
This thought-provoking paper explores the widespread similarity and standardization in material culture across the Indus Valley Civilization, termed by others as the ‘Harappan Veneer’. >
A refutation of some of the so-called "factoids" about the ancient Indus Civilization, from an Aryan invasion to the violent overrunning of Mohenjo-daro in an essay that describes the various cultural and societal systems that underlie this Bronze Age culture. >
A look at climate, river-basin and other geographic factors and their relationship to the possible east-ward evolution of the Indus Valley civilization. >
"It has become clear that Balochistan can neither be perceived as a border nor as a frontier; but rather as a core area with its own dynamics and characterised by regionally distinctive styles." >
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. >
Through a comparative study of the artifacts, pottery, architecture, faunal, and botanical remains of Harappa, an increasingly sophisticated view is obtained of the complex and dynamic political, ideological, and economic processes that were an integral part of Harappan urban society. >
"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?" >
