define the indus valley civilization in 200 words
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Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization existed along the Indus River in present-day Pakistan. The Mohenjo-daro ruins pictured above were once the center of this ancient society.
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), was an ancient civilization thriving along the lower Indus River and the Ghaggar River-Hakra River in what is now Pakistan and western India from the twenty-eighth century B.C.E. to the eighteenth century B.C.E. Another name for this civilization is the Harappan Civilization of the Indus Valley, in reference to its first excavated city of Harappa. The Indus Valley Civilization stands as one of the great early civilizations, alongside ancient Egypt and Sumerian Civilization, as a place where human settlements organized into cities, invented a system of writing and supported an advanced culture. Hinduism and the culture of the Indian people can be regarded as having roots in the life and practices of this civilization.
This was a flourishing culture, with artistic and technological development, and no sign of slavery or exploitation of people. The civilization appears to have been stable and its demise was probably due to climactic change, although the Aryan invasion theory (see below) suggests that it fell prey to marauding newcomers.
The Indus civilization peaked around 2500 B.C.E. in the western part of South Asia. Geographically, it was spread over an area of some 1,250,000 km², comprising the whole of modern-day Pakistan and parts of modern-day India and Afghanistan. The Indus civilization is among the world's earliest civilizations, contemporary to the great Bronze Age empires of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. It declined during the mid-second millennium B.C.E. and was forgotten until its rediscovery in the 1920s.
To date, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus River in Pakistan.
Additionally, there is some disputed evidence indicative of another large river, now long dried up, running parallel and to the east of the Indus. The dried-up river beds overlap with the Hakra channel in Pakistan, and the seasonal Ghaggar River in India. Over 140 ancient towns and cities belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization have been discovered along its course. A section of scholars claim that this was a major river during the third millennium B.C.E. and fourth millennium B.C.E., and propose that it may have been the Vedic Sarasvati River of the Rig Veda. Some of those who accept this hypothesis advocate designating the Indus Valley culture the "Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization," Sindhu being the ancient name of the Indus River. Many reputed archaeologists dispute this view, arguing that the old and dry river died out during the Mesolithic Age at the latest, and was reduced to a seasonal stream thousands of years before the Vedic period.
There were Indus civilization settlements spread as far south as Mumbai (Bombay), as far east as Delhi, as far west as the Iranian border, and as far north as the Himalayas. Among the settlements were the major urban centers of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, as well as Dholavira, Ganweriwala, Lothal, and Rakhigarhi. At its peak, the Indus civilization may have had a population of well over five million.
Extent and major sites of the Indus Valley Civization (modern state boundaries shown in red)
The native name of the Indus civilization may be preserved in the Sumerian Me-lah-ha, which Asko Parpola, editor of the Indus script corpus, identifies with the Dravidian Met-akam "high abode/country" (Proto-Dravidian). He further suggests that the Sanskrit word mleccha for "foreigner, barbarian, non-Aryan" may be derived from that name.
For all its achievements, the Indus civilization is still poorly understood. Its very existence was forgotten until the twentieth century. Its writing system, Indus script, remained undeciphered for a long time and it was generally accepted that it was a Dravidian language. In this view (see below) the original Dravidian inhabitants of India were forced South by the migration or invasion of Aryans, who brought with them proto-Vedic that later developed into Sanksrit. This is hotly disputed by contemporary Indian historians and linguists, who argue that the idea that foreigners always dominated India was conducive to European imperial ambitions.
Among the Indus civilization's mysteries, however, are fundamental questions, including its means of subsistence and the causes for its sudden disappearance beginning around 1900 B.C.E. Lack of information until recently led many scholars to negatively contrast the Indus Valley legacy with what is known about its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, implying that these have contributed more to human development.