Table 13.1 Site counts, total settled area, and average site size for Cholistan
The interface between the Cemetery H assemblage and the Painted Gray Ware has not yet been defined in Pakistan. In India, Painted Gray Ware begins at circa 1100 B.C. The interface between this assemblage and the Late Harappan in the Punjab has been documented at such places as Dadheri and Bhagwanpura.15
The large number of Mature Harappan sites in Cholistan is due to the presence of a rich inland delta there, which created a large tract of naturally irrigated land for farming and pasture. Sites of the Early Harappan-Mature Harappan Transition, circa 2600—2500 B.C., have not been identified in Cholistan, but they are surely there. The chronology for Mughal’s periods is taken from the one used here, not from his 1997 monograph; but there is little difference between them.
The maps of sites from Cholistan seem to give us the broad outlines of the relative strength of flow in the ancient Sarasvati from Hakra Wares times through the Early Iron Age.16 The relatively high density of Hakra Wares sites may well inform us of a rather strong flow in the river, which diminished in the next period, with the Early Harappan (Kot Dijian) sites being relatively few in number in this area. The very high number of Mature Harappan settlements suggests a resurgence of the river and a rich, well-watered inland delta. Then, in the Cemetery H and Painted Gray Ware periods we see the two-step retreat of the river to the east, eventually with insufficient flow to even reach the old Fort Derawar delta.
The fluvial sequence apparently has little, if anything, to do with broad trends in climatic change, but can be explained by tectonics as outlined in Agrawal and Sood.17 Over what seems to have been the course of the later third and second millennia B.C., drainage from the Himalayan watershed that fed the Sarasvati was gradually captured by streams that flowed to the east, into the Bay of Bengal, at the expense of the greater Indus system. This process apparently led to the creation of the Yamuna River, a very young stream, and the drying up of the Sarasvati and Drishadvati Rivers.
This is not to propose that stream capture was the direct cause of the eclipse of the ancient cities of the Indus. A sociocultural cause is sought here, but, over the course of the third and second millennia, the Sarasvati dried up, and that seems to have been something that cannot be ignored in a broad consideration of the transformation of the Indus Civilization.
An Indo-French archaeological project has also found many sites along the ancient Sarasvati, but on the Indian side of the border. The team’s findings conform to Mughal’s data, including a significant number of Kushan Period sites with the well-known, easily recognized red polished ware. They say of the stream capture:
This shift would have occurred either in the still badly defined Late Harappan period or in the PGW (Painted Gray Ware) period, or gradually during both since Late Harappan (Cemetery H) and PGW sites in the state of Cholistan in Pakistan are found on one of the paleochannels known locally as Hakra. However, the adoption of this “hypothesis” poses an interesting methodological problem. If we accept this hypothesis, we must logically accept as well that another tectonic upheaval would have made the rivers revert to the Kushan (Rang Mahal) period since sites from the latter are again found in the region.18
This is an important statement that Francfort intends to use to sharpen the problem. It is not certain, however, that Francfort’s point is really true. That is, must we accept the same explanation for both data sets, the protohistoric and the early historic (Rang Mahal)? Wars and migrations come about for many reasons; the same is surely true for the regeneration of a settlement grid. For example, technologies unavailable, or unused, in prehistoric times might have been part of the Kushan agricultural regime. Facilities like irrigation or the use of bunds for impounding rainwater and soil emerge as important new technological features in western India at about the time of the Kushans. Such agricultural technology could have allowed renewed settlement in northern Rajasthan, independent and unrelated to tectonics.
GURDIP SINGH AND CLIMATIC CHANGE
The work in 1971 of G. Singh and his team at three salt lakes in Rajasthan has already been reviewed.19 There is evidence for changing salinity in these lakes, but this does not necessarily imply changes in rainfall. An archaeological point can be made in the present context.
The Eastern Domain was well settled in Mature Harappan through Posturban times. This is the area 300 to 400 kilometers to the north of the salt lakes in Rajasthan said to have data for climatic change in the third/second millennia. Premodern agriculture in this area was dependent on rainfall, although some canal irrigation is available today. Site counts go up from 218 during the Mature Harappan to 853 in Posturban times, although there was a dramatic drop in average site size, down from 13.54 to 3.55 hectares. These figures in average site size may also be telling us something important about the kind of “deurbanization” that characterizes the Posturban Harappan. But in the end, these data do not look like those that one would expect if there had been a severe reduction in rainfall as Singh proposed, especially given the fact that it is a dry-cropping region.
THE ALLCHINS’ APPROACH
In their most recent book on the archaeology of India, Allchin and Allchin have an important discussion of the transformation of the Indus Civilization.20 They propose:
There are several factors that probably contributed to the abandonment of the urban sites. These include economic factors, particularly the decline of Mesopotamian trade, which had been flourishing up to c. 2000 B.C. The reasons for this are unimportant to our discussion, but its decline must have been serious for the Indus cities as, unlike the merchants of Egypt and Mesopotamia, they had no alternative major trading partner to turn to. It would appear that they must have had considerable trade within their own region and its hinterland to fall back on, but this too seems to have been undermined by other causes. In Sindh particularly, and perhaps in other regions to a lesser extent, there was clearly a steady deterioration in the climate and environment. Uplift of the Himalayas due to Plate Tectonics is probably the principal underlying cause of changes in the course of the rivers of the Indus system, as we have outlined in earlier chapters.21
The Allchins’ approach invokes a series of changes that are coincident and that, working together in some yet to be fully understood way, led to the transformation of the Indus Civilization. This is a sound way to proceed, but has some pitfalls. For example, we are not sure that there was an interruption of foreign trade with Mesopotamia circa 2000 B.C. The trade does seem to trickle off at about 2000 B.C., but it may not have stopped. There are many references to Meluhha, the Indus Civilization, in Mesopotamian texts of the second millennium 22 The Allchin proposal also places critical importance on Mesopotamian trade vis-à-vis the Mature Harappan economy. Do we know that it was so important that the termination of trade with the west would have had an impact on the entire civilization? With this proposal also comes the knotty problem of “direction” in causality: Did the secession (or reduction) of trade contribute to the transformation of the Indus Civilization, or did the transformation of the Indus Civilization lead to the secession (or reduction) of the trade? These are serious problems for those interested in the Indus transformation.
Table 13.2 Estimated settlement data for the Mature and Posturban Harappan
In subsequent pages the Allchins draw heavily on natural forces as causes for the eclipse of the Harappan Civilization. They propose that “a reduction of rainfall in Sindh and the immediate hinterland could well have been an added cause for the abandonment of Mohenjo-daro and other urban sites.”23 But Mohenjo-daro today receives less than 12 centimeters of annual rainfall and the ancient city today would be in a desert if it was not for the floods of the Indus. We could take away virtually all of today’s rain and still have a viable agropastoral environment.
The Allchins state their case for the interconnection of causes in regional and interregional terms. They deal with the Greater Indus region, which is necessary for a complete un
derstanding of the transformation process.
WHAT HAPPENED?
While there is little doubt that the beginning of the second millennium saw many important changes in the Indus Civilization, there are interesting patterns to the data set that can serve as a starting point to recast the problem. The record of settlement, comparing the Mature with the Posturban Harappan region by region, is summarized in table 13.2 (see also figure 13.1).
The settlement patterns around Harappa are not well enough known at this point for the data at hand to be comparable to other regions. The Pakistan Department of Archaeology and R. Wright are currently engaged in an active program of exploration to rectify this. For now, we know that Harappa shrank in size at the beginning of the second millennium. The archaeological assemblage that succeeds the Mature Harappan is the so-called Cemetery H assemblage. Wheeler found Cemetery H habitation in the western portion of the high AB mound.24 The U.S. team currently working at the site has found more. Their excavations have also produced the first radiocarbon date for the Cemetery H assemblage at 1730 B.C., nicely within the expected time range.
Documentation for the Posturban in northern Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier, and Derajat is also not sufficient to make comparative statements with other regions of the Indus Civilization. Moreover, these regions were not securely within the Mature Harappan cultural/political system, if style and politics can be proxied one for the other. There is a lot yet to be learned here. The University of Peshawar and a team from the United Kingdom are currently working in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan (Rehman Dheri), which should help to overcome this deficiency.
The figures in table 13.2 and the narrative that was developed here indicate that the “eclipse of the Indus Civilization” holds for the Sindhi, Kulli, and possibly the Harappa Domain, but in the Eastern and Sorath Domains, the course of cultural change was different. In these latter areas there were stronger lines of continuity through the early centuries of the second millennium without evidence for the “trauma” that effected Sindh and Baluchistan. The stark image one has for the Kulli Domain in Baluchistan in the second millennium repre-sents a clear challenge for field archaeology because it would not seem reasonable to presume that the entire area was deserted at that time. Excavation and exploration are needed to give a more realistic sense of the cultural history at that time.
Figure 13.1 Map of sites of the Posturban Indus
Archaeological exploration in the Punjab, Haryana, northern Rajasthan, and western Uttar Pradesh has produced good evidence for human habitation in these areas during the opening centuries of the second millennium B.C. These are dry-farming areas, dependent on rainfall. The exploration records indicate a dramatic increase of habitation at this time; yet this is the period of the so-called eclipse of the Indus Civilization and a period proposed to have been “arid” in this region. Lake Lunkaransar, which played a role in the “desiccation hypothesis,” is approximately 90 kilometers south of the ancient Sarasvati River and therefore within, or at least on the borders of, this settlement area. The kinds of climatic changes proposed to have taken place around this body of water can be assumed to have pertained to the Punjab, Haryana, the rest of northern Rajasthan, and western Uttar Pradesh. There is an historical awkwardness here on two counts: There is a period of eclipse with a growth of human habitation; and a proposed aridity at a time when archaeological data indicate widespread dry cropping.
Another Interesting Historical Observation from Gujarat
There are other interesting things that happened at the beginning of the second millennium, to the south, in Gujarat. The story there is somewhat different from the one unfolding in the Punjab, Haryana, northern Rajasthan, and western Uttar Pradesh, but the conclusions that are emerging are similar to those reached in this chapter. There is little evidence for climatic change, let alone climatic change that led to cultural change. It is also clear that the history of the Indus Civilization in Sindh and the West Punjab at the beginning of the second millennium is different from that which took place in Gujarat, especially on the peninsula of Saurashtra. There are few signs of collapse or eclipse there, and at some places, such as Rojdi, they were busy with the expansion and rebuilding of their settlements as Mohenjo-daro was being abandoned.25
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE TRANSFORMATION?
What archaeologists see when they examine the Greater Indus region in the early second millennium are abandoned or dysfunctional Indus cities, wasserluxus has vanished, and gone is the technological virtuosity of the Indus Civilization. Of the latter, Vidale and Miller note: “An important change occurs during the . . . [Posturban Harappan]. With the end of the Indus way of life, and the extinction of many typical expressions of Indus material culture, many elaborated crafts . . . are extinguished, together with the basic information technology of the urban rulers, writing.”26 The stylistic features of the Indus Civilization that were the signs and symbols of these peoples are also gone, or considerably altered: the painted pottery style, for example, and the stamp seals, writing, the distinctive Indus terra-cotta figurines, amulets, “folkloric” themes like the yogic pose, the human in the pipal tree as in the Seal of Divine Adoration. Some of the ideology was preserved in the Sorath and Eastern Domains, but in the same attenuated form that was always present in these areas.
A THEORY FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE INDUS CIVILIZATION
From these observations it is clear that the transformation of the Indus Civilization took place at its heart, the ideological core: nihilism, urbanization, wasserluxus, technological prowess.
The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro was abandoned late in the history of the city, but well before the transformation. This is a unique structure elevated above and separated from the vulgar life of the city and is intimately connected with water and the “water ideology” of the Indus peoples. The abandonment of the Great Bath is therefore a moment of considerable importance, since it can be seen as the beginning of the end. Over the next two or three centuries there was a progressive deterioration of urban life and sociocultural complexity at Mohenjo-daro and in the Indus Civilization generally. The symbolic value of water fades away; brick-lined wells, the metropolitan drainage system, and bathing platforms are no longer constructed. The iconographic themes of the ideology of the Indus Civilization are slowly lost: figurines, pottery, seals, and other glyptic items. Technological innovation comes to a virtual end, and much of the Mature Harappan high technology is no longer used: baked-brick architecture, drainage systems, seal cutting, etching carnelian, drilling of long carnelian bead stoneware bangles. Some technological innovations such as bronze and faience survive, but they are in the minority.
The difficulties for nihilism to be completely successful have already been noted. Just as continuities between the Early Harappan and Mature Harappan are present, so, too, is there a legacy of the Indus Civilization in the Subcontinent. This is especially seen in the broad range of adaptations to the natural world: farming, pastoralism, house construction, and so forth. There may also be some philosophical themes that are ultimately rooted in the Indus Civilization, especially yoga and the heaven-male /earth-female duality as it relates to the creation myth of the Vedas.
In spite of these legacies, the successors to the Indus Civilization largely ridded themselves of the memory of a vast enterprise involving millions of peoples who had for several centuries been part of an immensely successful civilization. Since things like this do not happen by accident, or through inattention, I am drawn to the notion that the Indus ideology came to be seen in a terribly negative light. The Indus ideology ultimately had feet of clay. The zealots, the “true believers” of the Indus Civilization ultimately lost, perhaps not everything, but their civilization failed, not as an entire culture but as a complex society.
One of the shortcomings of my 1967 review of the Raikes/Dales hypothesis is that I came far short of offering an alternative explanation for the transformation of the Indus Civilization.27 I did, however, suggest that
the explanation was not likely to be found in natural calamities of any kind, but within the fabric of the Indus sociocultural system. That is, the fatal flaw was centrally, and most importantly, sociocultural in nature; not flood, avulsion, drought, trade, disease, locusts, invasion, or any other of a myriad of “natural” or “outside” forces. A failed Indus ideology is here proposed to be the sociocultural flaw.
Historically, the Mature Harappan is a short-term phenomenon, it lasted a mere 600 years, as opposed to Dynastic Egypt, which encompasses 3,000 years of history, or Chinese civilization, which has survived for at least as long. Because it was a short-term phenomenon from a comparative point of view, the Indus Civilization also emerges as a kind of experiment in sociocultural organization, and one that was not entirely successful.
It would be wrong to imply that the Indus Civilization was a failure from its beginning. The new ideology that these peoples brought forth made them highly successful for 600 years and spread over a vast expanse of the Subcontinent. The Indus peoples built and maintained great urban centers, conducted maritime trade with the gulf and Mesopotamia, and probably reached Africa. They were economically prosperous for their time. They enjoyed the art of writing, were successful technological innovators on a huge scale, and their iconography was integrated into the Intercultural style of the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere. These all tell us of a well-oiled sociocultural system that had created great social harmony in human relationships and with the environment.
The Indus Civilization Page 42