Question

what are the problems faced by archeologists in reconstructing the history of the harappan people?

Answer 1

Over two thousand sites of the Harappan culture have been discovered so far, of which only half a dozen are cities and slightly more than a dozen can be identified as towns. Rest of the settlements fall in different categories like small or big villages, processing centres, ports, and temporary camps for exploitation of local natural resources. A glace at the research strategy adopted by the Harappan archaeologists reveal that baring the site of Ganweriwala all the Harappan cities have been excavated on large scale,producing large quantity of data on various aspects like town planning, trade, social, religious and economic. This data has enabled reconstruction of urban or city life of the Harappan people but it represents less than even 3% of the Harappan population. We have however, very little idea of their rural lifestyle, where more than 97% Harappans were living, as "Small Harappan Site Archaeology" does not seem to be a priority of the Harappan archaeologists. Very few small Harappan sites have been subjected to large-scale systematic excavations. In fact there is a need to systematically identify and document different categories of Harappan sites and a number of sites in each category needs to be systematically excavated on large scale which in the real sense will give a holistic picture of the Harappan life and history.