Shell Industries at Moenjodaro, Pakistan
By determining the ancient source areas for shells, we can gain a new perspective on the trade networks and the exploitations of marine resources by protohistoric coastal populations.
Articles on natural resources and raw materials in the ancient Indus civilization
By determining the ancient source areas for shells, we can gain a new perspective on the trade networks and the exploitations of marine resources by protohistoric coastal populations.
Balakot is one of four known ancient coastal sites in Pakistan dating to the period of South Asia's earliest civilization -- the Harappan (or Indus) -- that flourished in the centuries just before and after 2000 B.C.
Ras Gadani and Phuari were surveyed in the 2000s by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Las Bela and Lower Sindh. The discovery of a few sites on the two headlands has shown the importance of the Las Bela coast for the archaeology of the northern Arabian Sea.
Surveys conducted along the southeastern coast of Las Bela in the following years have shown that shell middens with different characteristics and variable chronology exist in many places among which are Gadani and Phuari Headlands and the shores of Lake Siranda. Shell middens are places where the debris from eating shellfish and other food has accumulated over time.
The results of the analysis of silver beads from Mohenjo-daro and Alladino and the possible origins of the silver in them.
New finds from 2010 at one of the earliest flint mines in South Asia.
Harappa’s rock and mineral assemblage from the perspective of the greater Indus Valley’s complex geology, the distance one would have to travel to acquire certain materials and a discussion of the differing motivations behind the acquisition and transport of rock and minerals in the greater Indus Valley region.
The author's propose a method to analyze some of the largest artifacts recovered at Indus Civilization (ca. 2600 to 1700 BC) cities in Pakistan and northwestern India, the limestone “ringstones.” This later led to the determination that Harappa's ringstones came from near Dholavira.
Results from the 2010 surveys of Paleolithic (before 10,000 BCE) assemblages among the limestone terraces of Jhimpir.
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.