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Emergence of Civilizations / Anthro 341: Class "15b"

Not covered in class - Not included in the final exam

These are last semester's notes, posted in case you are interested

The emergence of civilization in the Indus valley: Early Indus period

ã Copyright Bruce Owen 2002
* The Indus valley: two particularly good sources

* the Allchin and Allchin extracts in the Reader
* the outstanding web site, Harappa.com, with excellent, up-to-date
synthesis and coverage of recent research, with lots of
illustrations

Geographic and ecological setting
* A huge area, compared to Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc: 1.3 million
square km.

* (Kenoyer says 650,000 square km.)
* naturally, the whole region is not all the same; the following
description is a broad average...

hot, dry, not enough rainfall for dry (non-irrigated) agriculture
away from the rivers
* must have river floodwater to farm

mostly alluvial soils without mineral resources, like Mesopotamia
* although some places have outcrops of stone useful for tools,
jewelry, etc.

highly unstable Indus river and its tributaries, shift course
frequently
* many sites are located along abandoned, dry river beds
* rivers are mostly navigable -- encouraging communication, exchange

Pakistan floodplain
* combines the best features of Sumer and the Nile

* topographically similar to Sumer

* rivers flood and form natural levees
* making irrigation easy with little need for large-scale canal
systems

but the floods come at a convenient time, like the Nile
* Floods June to September
* brings both water and rich silt

allows two different crops per year, without much investment in
canals or other works
* When flood starts or during it, plant cotton or sesame

* keep water in with low banks
* harvest as waters recede

after the flood, plant wheat or barley
* enough water remains in soil to support the plants without major
additional irrigation
* harvest in March to April, a few months before the next flood

this is how people traditionally farmed in the region in recent
times, apparently similar to practices that started in the Neolithic

wide zones of resources roughly parallel to the rivers
* forest along river banks
* cultivation further away
* grassland still further away, for pasturage and hunting
* beyond that, large expanses of desert

* crossed by nomadic herders and traders probably since Neolithic
times
* this is a periphery similar to that surrounding Sumer and Egypt

alluviation has raised the level of the plain up to 10 m (33 feet)
in some areas since Harappan times
* small sites must be deeply buried
* big (tell) sites are partly buried, with lower parts below the
water table
* evidence of irrigation, roads, rural sites in many places must be
meters below the surface

* so forget finding them except by lucky coincidence

* as in digging for canals, drainage systems, roads; natural river
cuts, etc.

fortunately, the former Ghaggar river, just inside India, was cut
off and left dry by a natural river shift in prehistory
* leaving the area free of later silt accumulation
* so in this one area, smaller sites and the regional pattern are
being found

Relationship with surrounding areas, and with Mesopotamia
* look at the map
* mountains to the west (Baluchistan) contain minerals, metals, are
good for pasturing herds; occupied by nomadic herders and settled
farmers
* desert to east limits contact with rest of Asia
* Himalayas to north also enclose the region

* these barriers enclose a huge area; regions within it are not
necessarily "circumscribed" in Carniero's sense

trade contact by land through mountains of Baluchistan

sea routes to head of Persian gulf - a 4 to 5 week trip by
traditional sailing vessel

did significant contact with Mesopotamia actually occur? when?

if yes, did it affect society in the Indus very much?

Subsistence: a regional variant of the familiar Southwest Asian
pattern
* "dwarf" wheat, club wheat, barley, peas, lentils
* rice possible, especially in the east, but apparently not very
important
* also cotton
* sheep, goats
* plus species domesticated locally: humped cattle, buffalo, pig

General chronology
* Periods are long, chronological detail is poor except within
certain sites

* but improving rapidly with ongoing research

Neolithic 7000 - 3500 BC (3500 years)
* Mehrgarh I-II 7000 - 4500 BC (2500 years)
* Mehrgarh III 4500 - 3800 BC (700 years)

Early Indus Period 3500 - 2600 BC (900 years)
* Mehrgarh IV-VII
* This period is roughly the same as what Kenoyer (check out
Harappa.com!) calls the Ravi phase (3300-2800 BC)

Mature Harappan Period 2600 - 2050 BC (550 years; this cutoff is
somewhat arbitrary)

Late Harappan Period 2050 - 1700 BC (350 years)

comment: Several of your readings (Whitehouse and Wilkins; Wenke)
repeat a frequent claim by calling Harappan civilization "short-lived"
* but Mature Harappan was 550 years long (compare to USA at 200
years long)
* and both Early Indus and Late Harappan should be at least
partially included as "Harappan civilization", for a total of up
to 1800 years
* consider the Egyptian Early Dynastic Period at just over 400 years
long; the Egyptian Old Kingdom at 436 years long; the Middle and
Late Uruk periods totaling 500 years long
* That is, Harappan civilization is in the same ballpark as the
others in terms of duration

* the difference is that the early Sumerian and Egyptian
civilizations led directly to later complex societies in a
sequence right into historical times
* while Harappan civilization apparently ended without leaving any
other complex society as a direct or obvious successor

Neolithic Period: 7000 - 3500 BC
* dates and location of initial domestication or adoption of
agriculture and domestic animals is unknown
* not surprisingly, cultures were highly variable from one small
region to the next, and changed a lot from one period to another
at individual sites, too
* A well-studied example site: Mehrgarh, on the western edge of the
Indus river system

* Early Neolithic: Mehrgarh I-II (of I-VII) 7000 - 4500 BC

* transition from the Indus plain to the mountains of Baluchistan in
eastern Iran
* mudbrick houses from the beginning
* agriculture

* wheat, barley, dates
* blades set in handles with bitumen (sickles) suggest grain
harvesting
* as do grinding stones

animals
* cattle, water buffalo
* sheep and goat (wild?)

pottery by 6000 BC

in Period II (5500-4500 BC)
* cotton
* "box-buildings": possibly grain storage?

* 6 x 6.5 m (20 x 21 feet) typical
* if storage, this would be very early evidence of storing surplus
* although hard to say if it was centralized or not
* box buildings are often not aligned with adjacent ones, as if they
weren't part of a single plan or operation

* that is, not a single, centralized, controlled storage place?

might also be foundations for buildings with wooden plank floors

clearly not for burials

in any case, they are different from anything in Sumer or Egypt
* they represent buildings that must have served a fair number of
people each
* but they are not obviously associated with anything special like a
temple

* so not for ritual?
* or for small-scale, non-centralized ritual?

long-distance trade already
* indicated by turquoise beads in burials
* conch shells from the Arabian sea
* lapis seals

* lapis comes only from Afghanistan, far to the north, so it implies
long-distance exchange
* the seals themselves may indicate that people were keeping track
of goods

the trade and box buildings, whatever they are, suggest some
economic complexity
* and it apparently started in a different context from Sumer and
Upper Egypt

a few burials
* some had personal ornaments, like beaded headbands, earrings, etc.
* including ornaments buried with infants

* so there may already have been some family-related status...
* although it is not much

Late Neolithic: Mehrgarh III, 4500 - 3800 BC
* box buildings continued to be used
* trade in turquoise, lapis, conch shell, other stones increased
* use of copper increased, but still rare
* greater variety of crops used
* Mehrgarh up to this time is generally considered to be
representative of the roots of the societies that developed out on
the Indus plain

Further out onto the Indus plain...
* people probably first settled out on the plain in the Late
Neolithic, around the time of Mehrgarh III (say 4500 BC), but this
still poorly known
* Wenke cites earlier dates (which I suspect are in error)

* he has settlements on the Indus plain by 6000 BC, already showing
variable sizes suggesting some complexity
* he says that by 5000 BC, some sites had large structures possibly
for communal activities
* and that by 4000 BC, fortified, planned communities were trading,
suggesting competing political groups

Conclusions about the Neolithic
* Still tentative, but...
* Agriculture seems to have started on the western margins, in
Baluchistan and the transitional zone, by at least 7000 BC

* a similar situation to the "hilly flanks" of Mesopotamia (the
"fertile crescent")

already used rectangular mudbrick architecture

maybe stored surplus, maybe some redistribution, maybe some communal
or group organization (box buildings)

made pottery by 6000 BC

trade already flourishing from the beginning of the Neolithic

settlement moved out onto the plain maybe 4500 BC (Wenke says before
6000 BC)
* again, similar to Mesopotamia, where the alluvium was only settled
after people had developed irrigation agriculture in more
promising areas nearby

Early Indus Period 3500 - 2600 BC
* a long period (900 years) that presumably lumps together a wide
range of societies
* contemporary with

* Middle and Late Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, and the first half of the
Sumerian Early Dynastic Period
* Naqada II through Egyptian Early Dynastic
* overall, in the same rough time frame, but the appearance of
complex society was probably a little later than in Sumer and
Egypt

the Indus plain began to be more densely settled by farmers
* although some sites had already been occupied in the neolithic
* there was presumably a long-term rise in population, but the
evidence is scanty
* increasing uniformity of cultures, although nowhere near as
uniform as they would get in the next period
* Subsistence

* wheat (several kinds), barley, lentils and peas
* cattle, sheep, goats, water buffalo
* many stone blades with sickle gloss, indicating a lot of grain
harvesting (and probably also cutting grasses for other things,
like thatch and fuel)

Agricultural towns
* located near rivers, often right on the riverbank, near land that
would have been well watered by annual floods
* some large

* Rahman Dheri, in second half of Early Indus (say 3000 BC, Jemdet
Nasr/Egyptian Early Dynastic), got to 22 ha
* over 4 times the size of the SSU main quad
* same ballpark of size as large Early Uruk centers, but 500 to 1000
years later

rectangular mudbrick houses in somewhat orderly rectangular street
plans
* not strictly planned, but far more so that the chaotic jumble of
Mesopotamian towns
* some had a main street running north-south, with secondary streets
perpendicular and parallel to it

* example: Rahman Dheri

some towns had a raised "citadel"
* large rectangular raised area or tell, often with high-status
residences and non-residential buildings on top, and the sides
held up by retaining walls
* the name is misleading; these were not necessarily mainly for
defense, although access was limited by the surrounding wall
* once thought to be artificial platforms
* now thought to be just the oldest section of town, where more
debris had accumulated
* and apparently the high-status people lived
* and central functions were carried out
* maybe because it was safest from flooding
* located to one side of the residential part of town
* example: Rahman Dheri

many early Indus town were walled
* like Rahman Dheri, Kot Diji, Kalibangan, Harappa, etc.

these towns are thought to have been relatively independent,
self-sufficient, not united
* each subregion within the Indus system had a different style of
pottery

but at least one site was economically specialized
* that is, it produced goods for exchange with people from other
towns

* meaning that some towns were already partially interdependent

Lewan Dar Dariz (contemporary with Rahman Dheri)
* 10 ha
* specialized groundstone producing site

* axes, donut stones (clubs? clod breakers? or...?)
* grinding stones for grain processing

also had a massive mudbrick city wall

Kot Diji
* one of the better known settlements of the Early Indus period
(3500-2600 BC)
* 33 km (20 miles) from the Indus river today, but when occupied,
the river flowed right by it

* the river has shifted course since then

massive defensive wall, lower part built of stone from the outcrop
the site is on, upper part of mud brick; preserved to 4-5 m high
(13-16 feet)
* defense, animal protection, or flood control?

around 2900 BC, a pottery style developed that is also found at
other sites far from Kot Diji
* this style was first identified and named here ("Kot Dijian")
* but this particular site is not necessarily the center from which
the style spread
* or it may not even have been a "spread" as much as an increasing
similarity across a large area due to increasing interaction of
some kind

Mehrgarh IV, V, VI, VII
* continued to be occupied through the Early Indus period
* pottery became more similar to that of Kot Diji (or vice versa!)

* supports the impression of a new, widespread style throughout much
of the Indus system

specialized craft production in particular mudbrick buildings

lots of terracotta figurines made
* hundreds found
* male and female, but female far more common

seals continued to be used

hints of some social stratification emerged
* one cemetery with a somewhat richer burial that contained

* several copper or bronze artifacts
* several carved stones claimed to be divining pieces

a cache of ceramic vessels in a Mehrgarh VII (2700 BC) structure
* hints at a wealthier individual or family
* maybe storage for trade, or specialized manufacturing?
* or something else?

Harappa
* better known as one of the largest cities in the following Mature
Harappan Period
* One deep trench found "Kot Dijian" style ceramics near the base of
the city wall
* suggests that there was already a walled city at Harappa in the
Early Indus period, but little more is known of it

Kalibangan
* roughly rectangular mudbrick walled city or large town
* about 30 meters from the river at the time; now by a dry channel
* standardized brick size, but different from later Harappan
standard (it was 3:2:1, vs. Harappan 4:2:1)
* some pottery similar to "Kot Dijian", but much was different
* field surface with perpendicular furrows, the same odd pattern as
used in modern times!

* this is more than a curiosity
* it means that we may be justified in projecting some of the recent
agricultural practices this far back; so probably much of the rest
can also be legitimately claimed for Early Indus times
* that is, floodwater irrigation, double cropping, minimal use of
canals, etc.

Meanwhile, to the west of the Indus system, in Baluchistan: Mundigak
* two mounds with large buildings on top: excavator called the
larger a "palace", the smaller a "temple"

* "palace" had a colonnaded hall

presumed to be in trading contact with Mehrgarh and other Indus
sites

late in the Early Indus period, added massive walls with square
bastions

this is one example of the complex societies that arose in between
Mesopotamia and the Indus system
* a big issue that we aren't going to touch here...

economic changes in the Early Indus period
* pottery made on "foot wheel" (like the "fast wheel" we have seen
elsewhere)

* allows greater production, presumably for exchange

copperwork became more common (although still rare)
* often appeared together with "Kot Dijian" ceramics
* so it may have been part of the spreading shared cultural complex

continued evidence of trade
* internal: specialized producers of groundstone artifacts, possibly
others
* external: in jewelry stones

* with Baluchistan, Afghanistan

but evidence for trade to places as far away as Mesopotamia is still
pretty hypothetical
* even though it is often claimed that trade contact with
Mesopotamia is what somehow brought about Indus civilization

oxcarts were in use by the time Kot Dijian ceramics were widespread,
possibly indicating larger-scale hauling of goods

trends and generalizations about the Early Indus Period (3500 - 2600
BC)
* this is when the Indus plain was settled and large towns developed
* very minor social stratification in burials, housing, etc.
* rise of large towns or cities

* with grid plans (although not terribly regular)
* massive town walls, maybe defensive or flood control
* some had "citadels" made by walling the older, higher part of town

early on, cultures were local, different from place to place

then they grew more uniform
* sharing a pottery style and a copperworking tradition
* Allchin and Allchin call this "Kot Dijian" style or shared culture
* although there were still regional differences between western,
central, and eastern parts of the Indus system
* Kot Dijian style apparently derived from Baluchistan roots
* a result of increased communication and/or trade?
* or increasing trade with Early Dynastic Mesopotamia?

did Early Indus settlements qualify as "civilized"?

Next time we will see how the towns of the Early Indus period were
transformed in the Mature Harappan period into what no one can deny
was a civilization