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Thanasis Kouris

Archaeology News - Aboriginal India and the Harappan Empire - 0 views

  • The Harappan rulers, by contrast, collected large quantities of grain into fortified storehouses, which suggests a major centralization of the land’s wealth. The rulers most likely introduced a system of plantation farming. They claimed large tracts of riverside land and cleared them of trees. Then they dug ditches from the river to irrigate the newly denuded areas. Instead of growing scattered gardens of many useful plants, the supervisors probably reserved their best fields for crops of a single species, and weeded out all other plants. The workers who did this may have been slaves, hired hands, or villagers required to donate days of labor. They probably worked under command, and not for themselves.
    • Thanasis Kouris
       
      Strong government. Eventually leads to collapse of society.
  • The Harappan cities of wood-fired brick, the large granaries, and the bones of wild animals (including bears, crocodiles, elephants, tigers and forest squirrels) from Harappan times, all suggested that the environment of Pakistan was once far greener. But as mentioned before, recent studies of soil and climate show no significant decline of rainfall over the course of history. Jacquetta Hawkes says the old vegetation was destroyed “not by a loss of rainfall, but by tree-felling and the grazing of goats and sheep
    • Thanasis Kouris
       
      The Harappans destroyed their environment.
  • Such deforestation tends to produce water logging on a flood plain, because trees constantly pump the groundwater up to their leaves. Removing the trees halts most of the pumping.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • As for irrigation, both the Harappans and Mesopotamians channeled water onto their fields with little provision for drainage. When the soil grew waterlogged, mineral salts floated up to accumulate in the topsoil. We have evidence that the Harappans spread gypsum on their fields, which is an old treatment for salt contamination.[xvii] Given enough time, periodic floods from the Indus would naturally wash away the saline deposits. But it seems the Harappan farming methods polluted the soil faster than the river cleaned it.
    • Thanasis Kouris
       
      More destruction of the environment.
  • The slow decline of Harappan towns suggests a gradual slide toward environmental poverty
  • denuded the land around their rivers, the basins filled more rapidly with silt, choking the Indus in mud. Where accumulations filled the riverbed, the Indus broke its banks and roamed like a thrashing snake over central Pakistan. This is how rivers behave in desert regions. The Harappan cities were built on massive embankments of earth to escape floods. Yet even some raised towns show signs of inundation. The shifting rivers left other settlements high and dry, such as the ruins by the banks of the old Sarasvati.
  • Some towns were destroyed quite early, around 2000 BCE. Others lingered about five centuries more. In those centuries, town residents increasingly cannibalized the old buildings for brick and wood. New construction no longer followed any master plan. The Harappan writing fell from use. Finally, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were sacked, with a few dead bodies left in the streets. Probably most of the population had already left.
Shree B

Harappan Civilization: ca. 3000-1500 BC - 1 views

  • The similarities in plan and construction between Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa indicate that they were part of a unified government with extreme organization. Both cities were constructed of the same type and shape of bricks. The two cities may have existed simultaneously and their sizes suggest that they served as capitals of their provinces.
    • Shree B
       
      Mohenjodaro and Harappa were a part of the same society, with the same basic structure
  • The Harappan civilization experienced its height around 2500 BC and began to decline about 2000 BC. The causes of its downfall are not certain. One theory suggests that the Aryan people migrated into this area. Aryan religious texts and human remains in Mohenjo-Daro suggest that the Aryans may have violently entered the area, killing its inhabitants and burning the cities.
    • Shree B
       
      But didn't Armesto say that the people died because of a slow decline in population, gradual impoverishment of material culture, and a relentless increase in disease? Where are they getting the story abput the Aryan's invading?
  • The inhabitants of the Indus valley dispersed before the Aryans slowly entered the area as a nomadic people.
    • Shree B
       
      That makes sense. The people left because the landscape was no longer inducive to agriculture. But then why would the nomads come to this region? They were probably following the animals, but why would the animals come to this infertile region?
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  • Topsoil erosion, depletion of nutrients from the soil, or a change in the course of the Indus River may have forced these people to leave their towns and move northeastward in search of more fertile land.
    • Shree B
       
      Got it! :)
  • One of the most fascinating yet mysterious cultures of the ancient world is the Harappan civilization.
  • Only part of this language has been deciphered today, leaving numerous questions about this civilization unanswered.
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    SHREE
Jenna L

Why were the city life and agriculture of the Harappan Civilization in danger of collap... - 11 views

Shows the idea of an appropriate diagnosis of what lead to the extinction of the civilization. and if they all migrated elsewhere, noone was there to tend to the crops and the city life decreased, ...

http:__www.newworldencyclopedia.org_entry_Indus_Valley_Civilization

Thomas S

Intro/Rise and fall of the Indus Civilization - 0 views

shared by Thomas S on 29 Sep 09 - Cached
  • The Indus Civilization flourished between about 2600 and 1800 BC when it collapsed into regional cultures at the Late Harappan stage. According to Parpola the collapse was due to a combination of several factors like over-exploitation of the environment, drastic changes in the river-courses, series of floods, water-logging and increased salinity of the irrigated lands. Finally the weakened cities would have become easy victims of the raiders from Central Asia, whose arrival heralded a major cultural discontinuity in South Asi
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