Regional Interaction in the Prehistoric Indus Valley
The exchange and communication systems that connected distant parts of the Indus Civilization (c. 2600 to 1900 BC) and beyond had roots beginning in the early Neolithic period.
Articles on natural resources and raw materials in the ancient Indus civilization
The stone and shell beads of the shell-midden settlement of RH-5 (Muscat, Sultanate of Oman)
A look at shell-midden and cemetery sites discovered in Oman that date back to the fifth millenium BCE, testifying to the levels of development in areas around the Indus Valley civilization thousands of years before it reached its peak.
Early Evidence of Bead- Making at Mehrgarh, Pakistan: A Tribute to the Scientific Curiosity of Catherine and Jean- François Jarrige
Jean-Francois Jarrige (1940-2014) and his wife Catherine (b. 1942) were two of the most important archaeologists in the South Asian region, whose excavations at Mehrgarh, the site in Balochistan which predates the ancient Indus civilization by thousands of years, helped determine how far back the development of various traditions found in that and other regional civilizations actually reached.
A Diachronic Examination of Lithic Exchange Networks During the Urban Transformation of Harappa
The origins of manufacturing debris recovered from different periods of occupation between 3300 BCE and 1700 BCE at Harappa can now be identified with a high degree of certainty thanks to geologic source provenance studies.
The Shell Middens of the Bay of Daun
Environmental Changes and Human Impact Along the Cost of Las Bela (Balochistan, Pakistan) Between the 8th and 5th Millenium BP
INAA of agate sources and artifacts from the Indus, Helmand, and Thailand Regions
"Geologically speaking," write the authors, "agate is not a particularly uncommon rock . . .. However, good agate – i.e, that which ancient lapidaries would have found suitable for beadmaking – is not widely available. Nodules of the size and quality required to make Harappan-style long-barrel carnelian beads are, in fact, extremely rare" (p. 177).