What was the Indus Valley Civilisation?

The Indus Valley Civilisation is one of the oldest civilizations in human history. It arose on the Indian subcontinent nearly 5,000 years ago — roughly the same time as the emergence of ancient Egypt and nearly 1,000 years after the earliest Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley Civilization, in its mature phase, thrived for about 700 years(opens in new tab), from around 2600 B.C. to 1900 B.C.

“The Indus Valley Civilization, also called the Saraswati or Harappan civilization, is one of the ‘pristine’ civilizations on our planet,” William Belcher, an anthropologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, told Live Science.

A pristine civilization is one that arose indigenously or independently of other civilizations. More specifically, it is one that developed on its own, without conquest, and without the benefit of cultural exchange or immigration with another established society. Generally, the six pristine civilizations recognized by archaeologists and historians are in the following areas: Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica (which includes parts of Mexico and Central America), the Andean region and the Indus Valley. These civilizations arose at different times — the earliest of these, Mesopotamia, arose some 6,000 years ago, while the earliest Andean civilization, the Chavin,(opens in new tab) developed in approximately 900 B.C.

The Indus Valley Civilization derives its name from the Indus River, one of the longest rivers in Asia. Many of the Indus Valley Civilization’s large, well-planned cities, such as Mohenjo-Daro, Kot Diji and Chanhu-Daro, were situated along the course of the Indus River, which flows from the mountains of western Tibet, through the disputed region of Kashmir and southwestward before emptying into the Arabian Sea near the modern city of Karachi, Pakistan. Other Indus Valley Civilization cities were located next to different major rivers, such as the Ghaggar-Hakra, Sutlej, Jhelum, Chenab and the Ravi rivers, or on the alluvial floodplains between rivers. Today, much of this area is part of the Punjab region, which is translated as the “land of the five rivers” in what is now Pakistan. Other Indus Valley Civilization cities are located in northwest India, and a few additional cities are in northeastern Afghanistan, near archaeological sites where tin and lapis lazuli, a blue metamorphic rock, were mined. 

“The Indus Valley Civilization covers approximately 1 million square kilometers [386,000 square miles] and extends throughout northwest India, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan,” Belcher said. “This really makes it one of the largest ‘Old World’ civilizations in terms of geographic extent.” 

Indus Valley Civilization cities were characterized by sophisticated urban planning and included water control systems and grid-focused neighborhoods, with roads and alleyways laid out on the cardinal directions. Many of the roads were broad avenues that were paved in baked brick with elaborate drainage systems. Although archaeologists don’t know the exact number of inhabitants that these cities contained, the larger urban centers, like Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, might have had between 30,000 and 40,000 people, or possibly more, Belcher said.

“The Indus Valley Civilization first came to the attention of the world through the work of British officer-archaeologists during the mid-1820s,” Belcher said.

The first of these, according to World History Encyclopedia(opens in new tab), was a man who went by the alias of Charles Masson (his real name was James Lewis). Masson was a soldier of artillery who deserted the British army in 1827 and subsequently roamed the Punjab region. He was an avid coin collector, and he excavated ancient Indian archaeological sites looking for coins. His travels eventually took him, in 1829, to the Indus city of Harappa, in modern-day Pakistan, where he looked for coins and other artifacts. Most of the city was buried by that time, but Masson made a record of the city’s ruins in his field notes, which included drawings. Masson had no idea how old the city was or who built it — he attributed it to Alexander the Great, according to World History Encyclopedia. 

livescience