In the early second millennium, many cities in southern Mesopotamia declined or were abandoned, due mainly to the salinization of the soil. The focus of power shifted farther north, to the Babylon region (northern Babylonia), and traders greatly reduced the scale of their operations in the Gulf, eventually turning instead to trade routes through the Iranian plateau and sources of raw materials in Anatolia and the Mediterranean. Whether the steep decline in Mesopotamian trade could have seriously affected the economy of the Indus civilization, however, is unknown. Other factors in the decline of the civilization may have included the beginning of the drying up of the Saraswati River, which sustained the densest area of Harappan settlement. This is reflected in the depopulation of Cholistan during the early second millennium and the increase in settlements in the regions to the east.
At much the same time there were significant agricultural developments. Mature Harappan agriculture had been based on the West Asian group of domesticates, which were utilized across the huge area from the Indus region to Western Europe: wheat, barley, and pulses, sheep, goat, and cattle. By the late third or very early second millennium, new crops were coming under cultivation in the Indus realms: rice and several varieties of millet. These were better suited for cultivation in much of India than wheat and barley, and so they both changed the productivity of some of the areas already under cultivation and opened up new areas for productive agriculture.
Late Harappan Cultures in the West
Jhukar. In the early second millennium, a number of settlements in Sindh were abandoned, including Balakot, Allahdino, and Mohenjo-daro. The latest surviving levels at Mohenjo-daro saw squatter occupations in some dilapidated houses. Among the objects found there are a few stray artifacts that seem alien in style: a copper shaft hole axe-adze of Iranian or Central Asian design and several daggers with midribs and holes where they had been riveted to metal handles. Similar objects are known at Chanhu-daro, Amri, and Jhukar, including shaft hole axes, copper pins with decorated heads, and round or occasionally square compartmented stamp seals bearing geometric designs, including one resembling a radiating sun or Catherine wheel. These indicate that there were significant contacts between Sindh and the cultures west of the mountains in Iran and Turkmenia, whether through trade or the arrival of immigrants. These objects were associated with a style of pottery named after the site of Jhukar, a buff ware with painted designs, with similarities to the Early Indus Amri ware. This pottery can be seen to have developed from that of the Harappan period, as can many of the artifacts at these and other contemporary sites in Sindh, though there seems to have been a steady decline in their quality. Though there was no break between the Mature Harappan and Jhukar occupations in these settlements, there was a marked decline in the standard of living, with inferior houses built from salvaged bricks and no attempt to follow the earlier planned street layouts. Hoards of concealed jewelry and metal objects have been found at Mohenjo-daro and Chanhu-daro, suggesting a prevalent feeling of insecurity. In the latter town, unfinished craft objects suggest the hasty abandonment of activities in the face of danger. There are, however, no signs of the violent destruction that have been found in many sites farther west, in Baluchistan and eastern Iran.
Gujarat. In Gujarat the transition to Late Harappan began early, perhaps by 2100 BCE. This region had always maintained a degree of local distinctiveness: for example, pottery styles characteristic of the Early and pre-Harappan periods, such as Prabhas ware, continued in use alongside Mature Harappan pottery. Sites like Lothal had been fully integrated members of the Indus ecumene; others, such as Somnath, less so. By the end of the third millennium, however, even previously well integrated sites such as Lothal were beginning to drop out of the Mature Harappan way of life. Instead of high-quality flint brought in from the Rohri Hills in Sindh, stone tools were now made of local stone such as jasper and agate. Mature Harappan pottery declined in quantity and was replaced by an increased quantity of traditional local wares, such as Prabhas ware, and by new wares, in particular Lustrous Red ware, a bright red ceramic that became dominant in Gujarat sites like Rangpur during the early second millennium and that was later also used farther afield in the Deccan, reflecting trade, population movement, or both.
Other typical Mature Harappan material, such as stone weights, inscribed seals, and even beads, disappeared. In contrast, copper continued in use, perhaps reflecting the development of close trading relations with the Chalcolithic cultures to the east of Gujarat, Ahar-Banas, Jodhpura-Ganeshwar, and Malwa. Significantly, a number of the copper objects are of types known not in the Indus civilization but in the Chalcolthic cultures of Rajasthan and the Deccan.
The regional city of Dholavira declined and was then abandoned. It was reoccupied after perhaps fifty years as a small settlement of poor-quality houses that lasted for about a century before again being deserted. At many sites, such as Rangpur, brick architecture was abandoned in favor of other styles of construction: wattle and daub with a wooden framework, or stone foundations on which walls were built of mud, and in most cases thatched roofs. The construction of bathrooms and drains ceased. The warehouses at Lothal went out of use. Nevertheless, this did not reflect a decline so much as a change of emphasis, away from the urban aspects of the Indus civilization and toward a more rural way of life. This is well illustrated by Rojdi, a large farming village, where period IC (ca. 1900-1700 BCE) saw a great expansion of the settled area (perhaps a tripling in size), apparently involving planned rather than haphazard development, and the construction of a substantial wall with a large gate strengthened by buttresses.
In addition to the expansion of some previously occupied settlements, the earlier half of the second millennium saw a very considerable increase in the number of settlements in Gujurat. This probably reflects the change to new crops: Mature Harappan agriculture had used wheat and barley as the staple crops and in Gujarat native millets had also been important; now bajra and jowar, drought-resistant millets that were high yielding, free threshing, and well suited to the environment of Saurashra, became increasingly important. Rice may also have been cultivated at some sites, such as Rangpur.
Trade. The Late Harappan period saw the abandonment of Harappan settlements in the Makran, such as Sutkagen-dor, due to falling sealevels, which also affected some sites in Gujarat, including Lothal and Kuntasi. Patterns of sea trade through the Gulf altered as Mesopotamia experienced political and economic upheavals from around 2000 BCE, causing a major retraction in its trade. Gujarat no longer acted as the entry point for sea trade on behalf of the whole Indus region. This did not mean the complete cessation of sea trade, however. Bet Dwarka, a settlement now under water off the coast of Saurashtra, may have been established in the early second millennium as a port serving the communities of Saurashtra or Gujarat as a whole.
Neighbors to the East and South
Ahar-Banas Culture. Sizable communities had developed in the Ahar-Banas culture in western Rajasthan by the early second millennium, and some may by this time have been towns. Substantial traces of copper slag show that the inhabitants of Ahar were engaged in large-scale industrial activities. A stone and mud brick wall was built around the inner part of the Balathal settlement, thought to contain the residence of the settlement's leader. Elsewhere in the settlement was a complex of residential rooms and workshops, including a kiln, and another complex that may have been used for storage and food processing as well as housing. Ojiyana, a recently discovered site, was surrounded by a substantial wall within which was a network of streets oriented east-west.
Lustrous Red ware and white-painted Black-and-Red ware are among the styles of pottery found in the Ahar-Banas settlements, along with a large number of figurines of zebu cattle; Lustrous Red ware demonstrates a link with the Late Harappan settlements to the southwest in Gujarat, for example at Rangpur. The range of crops under cultivation by the Ahar-Banas people now included rice, jowar, and bajra, as in Gujarat.
Gilund, currently under excavation, included a substantial building subdivided by crosswalls into rectangular cells that contained pits and clay bins: The building seems to have been used for storage and may have been a community facility under the control of the town's leader. One bin contained more than a hundred clay impressions of seals, which suggest some degree of bureaucratic control and management. The impressions are remarkably similar to the geometric designs of seals used by the people of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), providing startling new support for the indications of contacts and perhaps the movement of people from this Central Asian culture. Others resemble Jhukar seals from Chanhu-daro and different seals from Pirak and Nindowari. Button seals in Jhukar style have also been recovered from Gilund. This gives added support to the picture of considerable cultural interactivity, exchanges, and probably the movement of small groups of people throughout the region from Central Asia to Central India.
Malwa and the Deccan. Settlements of farmers—growing wheat, ragi, and pulses; raising cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs; and hunting local game such as deer—were established at Navdatoli and other sites in Malwa during the late third millennium. This Malwa culture also included Nagda and other sites of the earlier Kayatha culture, as well as Eran farther to the east. The distinctive dark-painted pottery included jugs with long spouts and channel-spouted bowls. Stone tools and beads were very common, and there were also tools and ornaments in copper, including axes resembling those made by the Jodhpura-Ganeshwar culture. Rectangular and circular houses were accompanied by smaller buildings for storing agricultural produce. Substantial mud brick walls surrounded some of the settlements, including Nagda and Eran.
Farther south in Maharashtra, settlements of the Savalda culture may also have been established during the late third millennium. The best-known settlement is Daimabad, a farming village whose inhabitants grew wheat, barley, and pulses. At another site, Kaothe, which may be a seasonal pastoralists' camp, bajra probably of this period has been found, showing that this was also grown. The Savalda occupation at Daimabad was succeeded by a period in which Late Harappan material was prominent, including red pottery in typical Harappan shapes, two button seals said to bear Indus signs, and a burial in a grave lined with mud bricks in the standard Indus ratio. A hoard of four solid cast copper figures—a buffalo, an elephant, a rhino, and a man driving a chariot—may belong to this period, although they were discovered outside the site in circumstances that made their context impossible to establish, and they have no parallels in the Indus civilization. Copper slag indicates that there was a local metallurgical industry, which continued through the next phase, in which Late Harappan material disappeared. Finally around 1800 BCE Daimabad became incorporated into the Malwa culture, which now extended south as far as Sonegaon.
Southern Neolithic. The cattle-keeping farmers of the south, in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, had grown a range of local crops during the third millennium. From around 1800 BCE, however, they also began cultivating wheat, barley, hyacinth bean, ragi, and bajra, as well as cotton and linseed, suggesting that they were in trading contact with the Malwa culture to their north. Malwa-style urn burials at Watgal confirm this link. It is probable that the technology of copper working was also introduced from farther north, since from this period onward a few copper artifacts began to appear in Southern Neolithic settlements. A small number of gold objects show that the important local sources of this metal were by now being exploited.
Developments in the Northwest
Helmand. Around 2200 BCE, Shahr-i Sokhta and Mundigak went into decline, both shrinking very significantly in area. Both suffered attacks during this period: Mundigak was temporarily abandoned, then briefly reoccupied before being finally abandoned. At Shahr-i Sokhta, the Burnt Building, a large mud brick structure built around a courtyard, which was perhaps a palace, was destroyed by fire: A bronze spearhead and an unburied body have been found among the debris. The settlement was reoccupied by squatters but abandoned around 1800 BCE. This coincided with a similar decline in Turkmenia where prosperous Bronze Age towns such as Altyn-depe and Namazga also shrank very considerably, as did the area of the Namazga culture to which they belonged.
The decline in Seistan and Turkmenia coincided with a global climatic change that is thought to have taken place around 2200 BCE. Evidence from sources as far apart as the Oman seabed, Tell Leilan in northern Mesopotamia, and the Greenland ice sheets seems to indicate that a period of severe drought across a region from the eastern Mediterranean through much of Asia took hold around 2200 BCE and lasted for around three hundred years. Its effects were felt globally, with frequent El Ninos in South America affecting the monsoon rains and bringing drought to many parts of Asia. Reduced rainfall would have been critical in marginal regions like Seistan, where agricultural potential was precariously balanced; the Indus region, dependent less on monsoon rainfall than on snowmelt-fed rivers, was largely unaffected at first, although in the longer term some Indus regions may have suffered.
Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). In the same period, from around 2200 BCE, however, a new culture, the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, or BMAC, was developing in northern Afghanistan. This may reflect a migration eastward from the Namazga settlement area in southern Turkmenia. The new settlements appeared first in the Murghab delta in Margiana and gradually extended into other oases of the region. They were established along small rivers, where their inhabitants reared domestic animals and used floodwater and canal irrigation to raise crops. Associated material shows a high level of craftsmanship, with fine-quality, undecorated wheel-thrown pottery and with abundant metalwork, including many weapons and stone and bronze filigree seals. A fortified settlement dominated each region: These were either rectangular or square, around a hectare in area, and enclosed in a massive mud brick wall with towers. This culture spread into adjacent regions to the west and south, occupying the areas formerly of the Helmand culture and the urban cultures of Turkmenia. At the Indus trading outpost of Shortugai, Bactrian material was present during the last period of Indus occupation, when lapis lazuli processing ceased; in the subsequent period the settlement became part of the BMAC. By 1700 BCE the distinctive BMAC material was no longer present in its core region in the Amu-Darya (Oxus) region but was known in areas farther west and east, including Baluchistan and India.
Baluchistan and the Kachi Plain. The Indo-Iranian borderlands seem to have experienced considerable disruption in the early to middle second millennium. A number of settlements were destroyed by fire, including Rana Ghundai and Dabarkot, the latter apparently on four occasions. Gumla was destroyed and abandoned, and later burials were dug into its ruins. Many settlements in Baluchistan were apparently abandoned in the second millennium, and much of the material of this period recovered from the region is in the form of stray objects or burials with material that is linked stylistically with the BMAC and regions to its north. Burials near the earlier settlement of Mehrgarh (Mehrgarh South Cemetery) fitted this pattern, containing plain gray pottery and metal objects paralleled in north Afghanistan or southern Turkmenia. Material from a small settlement at nearby Sibri was similar, including BMAC-style compartmented seals and flat violin-shaped figurines.
The best-known site of this period, however, is Pirak. Here a large settlement was established around 1700 BCE. The houses were very different from those of the Indus Valley; they were rectangular, often multiroomed, structures of mud brick, and lines of niches were set into the inside of the walls. A brick platform held the hearth, and reed matting covered the floor. Silos were used to store the grain grown there, which comprised wheat, barley, jowar, and rice.
Material from the settlement included handmade pottery decorated with painted bands of geometric patterns, compartmented seals like those from the
BMAC, many copper or bronze objects, and terra-cotta figurines depicting camels and horses. In the succeeding period, the figurines also show horses with human riders. Many bones of both horses and camels have also been recovered from the settlement. Domestic Bactrian camels were kept in earlier times in Turkmenia and at Shahr-i Sokhta. Horses had been domesticated in the Eurasian steppe around 4000 BCE but did not reach the Indo-Iranian region until the second millennium; the Pirak specimens are the earliest securely dated and indubitable evidence of these domestic animals in the subcontinent. Despite the new features at Pirak, however, there was also material showing continuity with local traditions.
Gandhara Grave Complex. In the valleys of Swat and the extreme northwest, where long-established routes led through the mountains to northern Iran and Central Asia, the period after 2000 BCE saw the emergence of distinctive new burial rites associated with settlements such as Ghaligai, Loebanr, and Kalako-deray. Collectively these are known as the Gandhara Grave Complex. The funerary rites are distinguished by their diversity and by their regional and chronological variation. They included cremation and complete and fractional inhumation. Complete bodies were placed on their backs with their knees bent, in pits capped with stone slabs and sometimes lined with drystone walling. People were generally buried singly or in pairs. Children were sometimes interred in small slab cists. Cremated bones were placed in pottery cists or urns, some with pinched and cut-out decoration in the form of a face, or directly in the grave. The associated grave goods included pottery, violin-shaped human figurines, and metal objects, especially pins with elaborate heads. Many of these were closely similar to artifacts from sites in northern Iran, the BMAC, and the Caucasus, and it is thought that this reflects the arrival of numerous small groups of immigrants over the course of the second millennium. This is supported by the presence of horses in a few graves and by depictions of horses on pottery.
Despite these foreign elements, there was also continuity, with settlements of pit houses whose inhabitants practiced mixed farming, though at some sites rice was now grown as well as wheat and barley, and grapes as well as pulses. Links continued with the Taxila Valley to the south, and with Kashmir where rice cultivation also began and a few copper objects now appeared.
Late Harappans in the North and East
Cemetery H. In the late levels at Harappa, there were some signs of urban decay, though these were less marked than at Mohenjo-daro. Drains were no longer properly maintained. Some buildings were constructed of reused bricks. Concealed hoards of valuables suggest a degree of urban unrest. Other signs of urban decline include animals left unburied in the streets and a corpse left (or concealed?) in a building rather than decently interred. Nevertheless there continued to be a thriving occupation at Harappa. Many buildings were constructed of new bricks. Contemporary with this period was the use of Cemetery H where in the lower level (period II) graves contained extended inhumations with both typical Harappan pottery and some innovations: new shapes and a new style of decoration. In the upper level of the cemetery, however, a new rite appears: urns containing the collected bones of individuals who had generally been cremated, along with pottery in a new style, named Cemetery H after the graveyard. Physical analysis of these bones suggests that they belonged to people different from the earlier inhabitants of the city. Cemetery H pottery appears to be a hybrid style in which both new and Harappan forms were made, often largely plain, with a single band or frieze of painted decoration. Many of the motifs used in the decoration, such as peacocks, animals, and pipal leaves, were familiar, while others, such as stars, dotted rings, wavy lines, and people with long streaming locks of wavy hair, were new. Parallels for some of the shapes and designs occur in the general BMAC area, in northern Iran and northern Afghanistan. Cemetery H pottery is also found associated with the Late Harappan occupation at Harappa (period 5, 1900-1300 BCE), a time when occupation of the city seems to have increased in density, producing overcrowding. Cemetery H pottery is widely distributed in the eastern Punjab and farther east, and it is known as far north as Swat; Harappa lies near the western edge of its distribution.
This period also saw a marked decrease in the use of imported materials, such as marine shells, turquoise, and lapis lazuli, in the northern and eastern Harappan regions. At the same time, however, faience became increasingly common as a material for manufacturing jewelry in these regions and in the villages of the Late Harappan settlers farther east, in the Ganges-Yamuna doab. A bead from a hoard at Harappa, dated around 1700 BCE, was made of brown glass, the earliest known example of glass in South Asia. A new form of kiln appeared at Harappa in the Cemetery H period, another indication that technology was developing rather than declining.
Sothi-Siswal/Late Harappan. The Late Harappan period in the eastern region saw a gradual spread of settlement south and east into the Ganges-Yamuna doab, though none crossed the Ganges to its eastern bank. Settlements in this eastern region included some sites, such as Mitathal and Ropar, that had been occupied earlier (Mitathal, for instance, had been founded in the Early Harappan period) and others, such as Bara, that were new foundations. This spread went hand in hand with a gradual decline in the density of settlement from west to east. One of the principal factors in this southeastward ripple of settlement was the decline in the waters carried by the rivers of the Saraswati system; another was the increasing importance of rice, which, unlike wheat and barley, was well suited to cultivation in the lands being colonized.
The pottery produced in Late Harappan settlements in this region is said to display features of form, decoration, and fabric derived from many sources, including Mature Harappan, Sothi-Siswal, Jodhpura-Ganeshwar, Cemetery H, and Jhukar wares and even Iranian wares. Other materials in these settlements include copper artifacts. Houses were generally rectangular and were constructed of mud bricks.
OCP/Copper Hoards. Early archaeological investigations in Rajasthan and the Ganges-Yamuna doab often uncovered small sherds of a friable badly damaged ware that was described as Ochre-Colored Pottery (OCP), from which an
Although there were signs of civic decay at Harappa in the Posturban period, it was still a time of innovation and vibrancy, as is demonstrated by the production of glass, a considerable technological advance. This bead is the earliest glass object known from the subcontinent. (Harappa Archaeological Research Project, Courtesy Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan)
Otherwise unknown culture took its name. A number of caches of distinctive copper artifacts, including antenna-hilted swords, anthropomorphic axes, swords with a hooked tang and a midrib, and barbed and tanged harpoons, were also found in the doab, and they were attributed to a Copper Hoard culture. It was only in the later twentieth century, however, that excavations demonstrated that eastern OCP and copper hoards were made by the same people in the doab, who could now be chronologically pinned down to the early to mid second millennium. The copper hoards' artifacts are often of high-arsenic copper, the arsenic either being a deliberate alloy or, more probably, present as an impurity in the copper ore: This contrasts with other contemporary and earlier copper artifacts in South Asia, indicating a source other than the Aravallis.
OCP is a red ware with red slip and often painted decoration. Its antecedents lay in the red wares of the Jodhpura-Ganeshwar culture, showing that its makers included the indigenous cultures of the region, which had a long tradition of manufacturing copper artifacts. OCP sites can be divided into two groups. The western OCP was known at sites such as Jodhpura, Siswal, Mitathal, and Bara, occupied by late Jodhpura-Ganeshwar or Late Harappan groups, and their pottery showed a mixture of traits derived from both Jodhpura-Ganeshwar red ware and Late Harappan pottery as well as Cemetery H pottery and the Sothi-Siswal ceramic tradition that had endured from the Early Harappan period. Many of these settlements had evidence of extensive copper smelting.
To the east of Rajasthan, a somewhat different style of OCP was found from around 2000 BCE onward in western Uttar Pradesh at sites such as Lal Qila, Atranjikhera, and Saipai, along with objects made of copper. These were settlements of rectangular postbuilt wattle-and-daub houses. Their inhabitants practiced arable agriculture, growing rice, wheat, and barley and raising cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and buffaloes.
While some settlements had only OCP pottery, others such as Ambikheri and Bargaon had a mixture of OCP and Late Harappan material. Some scholars do not recognize a significant distinction between the OCP and Late Harappan wares, instead seeing OCP as one of several varieties of Late Harappan pottery. The impression these settlements give is of a patchwork of farming communities whose diverse ancestry was often reflected in their choice of styles of artifact but who were otherwise similar and well integrated.
World History
