By 4500 BC, the flooding and desertification had pushed concentrations of people along the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates and the Tigris in Mesopotamia. Although still relatively wet, the Indian subcontinent saw clusters emerge along the Indus and the Saraswati Rivers. The stage was set for the next big step in human history—civilization.
3
The Merchants of Meluhha
The traditional view locates the discovery of agriculture in the Middle East before it spread to other parts of the world. There is some evidence that this may have been generally true for Europe as it was repopulated after the Ice Age from the south and east. However, this unidirectional narrative is hardly applicable to the rest of the world and should be seen as a lingering vestige of the biblical world view that all civilization began in the Middle East. We now know that farming emerged independently in many parts of the world and that the Indian Ocean rim had multiple clusters. Thus, the story of the Indian Ocean rim is about the evolution of these clusters and their long-distance interactions from a very early stage.
India’s Early Farmers
To be fair, archaeology had initially supported the traditional view since the earliest evidence of farming in the Indian subcontinent had been found in the extreme north-west. Early excavations in Baluchistan, now part of Pakistan, suggested that this was the first place in the subcontinent to witness agriculture-based settlements. Mehrgarh, in the Bolan valley, is the best documented site and may have been occupied before 6000 BC (i.e. 8000 years ago). The site provides a fascinating view of the transition from hunting to domestication of animals. The early layers are dominated by the bones of wild animals like gazelle, spotted deer, sambar, blackbuck, nilgai, wild ass, and even elephants. Notice that some of these animals would not thrive in the wild in the dry climatic conditions of present-day Baluchistan. In the later layers, the mix gradually switches to cattle, goat and sheep.1
Barley was the earliest crop at the site. Baluchistan would have been within the natural habitat zone of wild barley during that period. So, it is quite possible that at least one variety of barley was domesticated here.2 A bit later we find that the inhabitants of Mehrgarh also began to grow wheat. Remember that Baluchistan is on the Indo-Iranian continuum, and people and trade were passing back and forth. Therefore, it is likely that wheat was acquired from the Middle East at an early stage.
More recent archaeological finds, however, suggest that farming appeared more or less simultaneously in a number of other clusters scattered across northern India. For instance, one concentration of Neolithic farm settlements have been found along the fringes of the Vindhya range in central India, just south of the modern city of Allahabad. As many as forty sites have been identified from the same period as the ones in Baluchistan. Interestingly, the central Indians were eating both wild and domesticated rice. It is currently believed that rice was domesticated in China and it is possible that the crop made its way to India via South East Asia. However, wild rice is still found in the general area, which could mean that it was independently domesticated in India.
We also find animal bones in the central Indian sites including cattle, deer, goats, wild boar and, hold your breath, horses.3 This fits in with what we know of shifting climate zones and the discovery of horses painted on rocks at Bhimbetka, a Stone Age site further to the south in Madhya Pradesh. The point is that Indians appear to have been familiar with horses from a very early age which goes against the common view that the animal was domesticated in Central Asia and came to India in the Iron Age. New Neolithic sites are still being found and excavated, so our knowledge of this period is fluid. As pointed out in the previous chapter, there may have been even older settlements along the coast that are now under the sea, especially off the Gujarat coast.
Interestingly, agriculture appears to have spread to southern India much later. What was the reason behind this? As we have seen, hunter–gatherers were not always impressed by farming. It is possible that climatic conditions in the south allowed them to continue with their existing lifestyle. Equally interesting is the distribution of the farming communities when they did come up. We find them concentrated along the Krishna River and, its tributary, the Tungabhadra. In contrast, there is very little evidence of early farming settlements along the south-east (i.e. Tamil and Andhra) coast. This is puzzling as the area shows evidence of human activity from much earlier periods.4 Perhaps the Neolithic sites were washed away by local rivers and covered with silt. Perhaps the settlements existed near the coast and were submerged by changing coastlines that ate into large tracts of land off the Tamil coast. My own guess is that faced with a choice between big game fishing and watching vegetables grow, the lads made the obvious choice.
The Rivers of Civilization
After a relatively benign period lasting several thousand years, the savannah grasslands that covered the Sahara and Arabia began to dry out again around 4500 BC. Populations that lived in the encroaching desert began to converge along the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia, both of which already had established farming communities. The influx led to a sharp increase in population but, unlike the arid period during the Ice Age, the major rivers continued to flow in full force. North-western parts of the Indian subcontinent also became drier while witnessing increased agricultural activity.
The need to manage increased pressure on the land was what possibly led to the emergence of complex political—alongside social and cultural—institutions in all these regions.5 In other words, these hubs of riverine civilizations were born out of adversity and culminated in the creation of the first kingdoms/states. In Mesopotamia, we see the rise of Sumerian city states. By around 3100 BC, Upper and Lower Egypt are unified into a single kingdom with its capital in Memphis.
Meanwhile, the Indian subcontinent witnessed the growth of settlements along two major rivers and their tributaries. One of the rivers is the Indus and the other is now the dry riverbed of the Ghaggar. Satellite photos and ground surveys confirm that the Ghaggar was once a mighty river that emerged from the Himalayas near modern-day Chandigarh, then flowed through Haryana, Rajasthan and Sindh before entering the sea through the Rann of Kutchh in Gujarat. With the Sutlej and the Yamuna as its tributaries, the river initially would have had water flow comparable to that of the Indus.
After decades of debate, it is now accepted by most serious scholars that the Ghaggar is the same river that the earliest Hindu texts refer to as the Saraswati.6 The importance of the river can be gauged from the fact that there are far more settlements clustered around the course of the Saraswati than along the Indus. This is why this civilization is now called the Indus–Saraswati civilization rather than the Indus Valley civilization. It is also known as the Harappan civilization after Harappa, one of its largest cities.
The Harappan civilization went through three phases. The earliest recognizable Harappan site at Bhirrana in Haryana, on the banks of the Saraswati–Ghaggar, has been carbon-dated to 7000 BC.7 This makes it at least as old as the sites in Baluchistan which were once considered the oldest in the subcontinent. The early evolution of the settlements in the area is still being analysed and is not fully understood but the earliest level coincided with a period which enjoyed an increase in monsoon rains. However, from around 5000 BC, the monsoons begin to gradually weaken (although they were still much stronger than today).8 As in Egypt and Mesopotamia, this coincided with densification of settlements along rivers. We know that by 3200 BC, at about the same time that Egypt was being unified, there are a large number of Harappan settlements on both the Saraswati and the Indus basins. This ‘early’ phase lasted till about 2600 BC.
The second phase, often dubbed the ‘mature Harappan period’, lasted from 2600 to 2000 BC. This is the period that saw the rise of major cities like Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Dholavira, Kalibangan and so on. Some of these settlements already existed in the previous phase but they now expanded by an order of magnitude. Recent excavations suggest that the largest of these c
ities was Rakhigarhi, Haryana, which is also in the Saraswati–Ghaggar basin. After 2000 BC, however, the archaeological evidence shows a steady decline—cities are abandoned, civic management deteriorates and there are signs of economic stress. Some of the settlements struggle on but the ‘late’ Harappan period peters out by 1400 BC. This is a simplified timeline and individual sites would have experienced somewhat different cycles.
The Harappans did not build great monuments like the pyramids but they outmatched their Egyptian and Sumerian peers in terms of population size, the sophistication of their cities and the sheer geographical reach of their civilization. At its height, there were Harappan settlements from Punjab in the north to Gujarat in the south, and from Baluchistan in the west to what is now western Uttar Pradesh in the east. We have even found outposts like Shortughai on the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border and Sutkagen-dor near Pakistan’s border with Iran, not far from modern Gwadar.
The Maritime Hub of Dholavira
Given the maritime orientation of this book, we will focus here on the Harappan sites in the Indian state of Gujarat. To understand the context of the numerous archaeological discoveries in this area, let’s begin with the landscape in which the Harappans built their settlements. First, western India was much wetter than it is today. Not only was monsoon rain stronger, the Rann of Kutchh received fresh water from both the Saraswati and the Indus. The estuary of the Indus was much further east than it is today and one of its major channels flowed into Kutchh. In fact, the Indus used to flow into Kutchh till as recently as the colonial period when a major earthquake in 1819 diverted the river. The fortress of the semi-abandoned town of Lakhpat still stands guard over the channel through which the Indus used to enter the Arabian Sea. Second, the relative sea level during Harappan times was several metres higher than it is today which meant that the Saurashtra peninsula was an island. Thus, ships could comfortably sail through what are now the salt flats and marshes of the Rann of Kutchh and then make their way out to the Gulf of Khambhat.9
Dholavira may look today like it is too far inland to be an effective port but, as shown in the map, it was built on a strategically located island in the third millennium BC. It was accessible by boat from the Arabian Sea to the west as well as the Gulf of Khambhat to the south. Boats from Dholavira would have also been able to sail up the Indus and, at least initially, the Saraswati to the cities that were emerging along their banks. In other words, Dholavira would have served as a very important commercial, and possibly military, node.
There is evidence that by 2600 BC, the Saraswati began to dry up. We do not yet understand the exact factors that caused this, but tectonic shifts in northern India may have caused the Sutlej to shift to the Indus and the Yamuna to the Ganga. There is debate about exactly when the two tributaries shifted but it is reasonably certain that it happened well before the great cities of the mature period were built. This would have deprived the river of two important sources of perennial glacial water. Still, rainfall was quite heavy at first and a rain-fed but diminished Saraswati would have remained a significant river although, as time passed, it was no longer navigable all the way to Dholavira.
Interestingly, the mature period of the Harappan civilization seems to take off at a time that the Saraswati may have already started its decline. We see a sharp increase in villages and sophisticated urban settlements along both the Indus and the Saraswati during this time. It is unclear why the Harappans invested in building so many cities along a dying river. If we do not manage today’s rivers sensibly, it is conceivable that future archaeologists will dig up the remains of twenty-first-century cities and wonder the same thing.
Meanwhile, the urban cluster at Dholavira expanded significantly. The site had a fortified acropolis and a ‘lower town’. At some point the city was expanded to accommodate the growing population and the old lower town became the ‘middle town’ and the expanded area became the new lower town. A wooden signboard has been found near one of the gateways. We do not know what it says as the script has not been deciphered but my guess is that it’s something mundane like: ‘Keep Left for Bullock-Cart Parking’.
We see a proliferation of settlements in Gujarat during the mature period, in Kutchh as well as the island of Saurashtra. Of these sites, Lothal is one of the best known because of the discovery of a large dockyard which used sluice gates and a spill channel to regulate water levels. Next to the dockyard, there are remains of structures that may have been warehouses and a series of brick platforms where one can imagine stern customs officials inspecting the goods and unscrupulous merchants trying to bribe them.
Lothal is several kilometres away from the sea now and modern-day visitors will be surprised to know that it was once possible to sail from Dholavira to Lothal. In fact, it is quite possible that Lothal was a customs checkpoint for shipping headed north for Dholavira through the Gulf of Khambhat. There may have been a similar checkpoint for ships coming in from the west, perhaps at Bet Dwarka, where a number of Harappan-era anchors have been found.
In addition to internal trade, there is plenty of evidence that the Harappans had strong economic links with the Middle East. The merchant ships from Gujarat made their way along the Makran coast, trading along the way. They may have stopped near Gwadar to visit their outpost at Sutkagen-dor (near what is now the Pakistan–Iran border). A bit further west, they would have interacted with the people of the Jiroft civilization. This civilization has been recently discovered in south-eastern Iran. Although we know very little for sure about its people, archaeologists have found seals like those of the Harappans and signs of close cultural links.10 In particular, several depictions of humped zebu cattle have been found in Bronze Age sites in southern Iran.11 This is interesting because humped cattle have their origins in India and are common in Harappan iconography. In other words, the coastline from Gujarat to southern Iran was still a well-populated continuum with strong economic and cultural links. Were these links a result of Bronze Age trade or did the Jiroft people of southern Iran and the Harappans share a deeper ancestry going back to the Stone Age?
Some of the Harappans sailing to Iran would soon venture across the narrow strait to Oman. Archaeologists digging at Ras al-Junayz, on the eastern most tip of the Arabian peninsula, found that over 20 per cent of objects were of Harappan origin. There are a number of enigmatic beehive ‘tombs’ from this period scattered across Oman. Most of them are in areas that are too arid to sustain a population today but were much wetter in the Bronze Age. The builders of these structures would have almost certainly interacted with visiting Indian merchants. Many of these merchants would then have made their way further into the Persian Gulf and sailed to Bahrain where plenty of Harappan seals, pottery and beads have been found.12
Further west, Harappan-origin artefacts have also been found in ancient Mesopotamian cities like Kish, Nippur and Ur. The records of Akkadian king Sargon I (2334–2279 BC) refer to ships from Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha (i.e. Bahrain, Oman and the ports of Gujarat/Sindh). However, note that the maritime route was not the only link between India and Mesopotamia. There were also land routes that made their way from the northern Harappan cities to Mesopotamia through Afghanistan and central Iran. There was also one that ran through Baluchistan and southern Iran along the Makran coast.
Trade with India had a big influence on the Persian Gulf area. For instance, Harappan weights and measures became the standard across the region. The locals also copied the Harappan seals. This was the beginning of a long commercial and cultural relationship that, despite booms and busts, continues to this day. Till as recently as the 1960s, the Indian rupee was used as legal tender in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE! For a while, the Reserve Bank of India even issued a special Gulf rupee for use in these countries. It was only when the Indian rupee sharply devalued in June 1966 that these countries began to issue their own currencies (Bahrain had already made the shift a few years earlier).13
Today the most visible example of these links are th
e large numbers of Indians who live and work in the Gulf countries. This too has its origins in Harappan times. Mesopotamian inscriptions mention that the Meluhhans were numerous enough to have their own ‘villages’ or exclusive enclaves in and around Sumerian towns. We do not know for sure what these Indians were doing there— they could have been a mix of merchants, artisans and mercenaries—but they seem to have been an important part of the bustling economy of Bronze Age Mesopotamia. We also have a handful of references to individuals. For instance, there is a cylinder seal belonging to a Meluhhan interpreter called Su-ilisu (of course, he may just have known a Harappan language and may not have been an Indian). Amusingly, we also know about a rowdy Meluhhan who was made to pay ten silver coins to someone called Urur as compensation for breaking his tooth in a brawl!14
We have some idea of what the Harappans exported—carnelian beads, weights and measures, different types of wood, pots of ghee (clarified butter) and, most importantly, cotton textiles. The cotton plant was domesticated in India and cotton textiles would remain a major export throughout history. Oddly, we are not sure what the Harappans imported in exchange. Nothing of obvious Persian Gulf origin has ever been found in any Harappan site. Perhaps they imported perishables like dates and wine. Another possibility is that they imported copper from Oman as the remains of several ancient copper mines have been found there. The Harappans had their own copper sources such as Khetri near the Haryana–Rajasthan border, but the Gujarati Harappans may have preferred Omani copper.
The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History Page 5