Tracing the Harappan Civilisation

🛤️ Post-Urban Phase of the Harappan Culture: From Cities to Villages

So this was a civilisation that reached dazzling heights of urban brilliance — and then began to slowly dissolve, not into nothingness, but into a quieter, rural rhythm of life.

That’s what happened after 1900 BCE, when the Harappan civilisation transitioned into what historians call the Post-Urban or Late Harappan Phase.

🧱 From Cities to Countryside

The majestic cities like Harappa and Mohenjodaro didn’t collapse overnight. Instead, they gradually declined and were abandoned.

People migrated east and south — into areas like:

• Punjab
• Haryana
• Western UP
• Jammu
• Swat Valley (Pakistan)

Here, they started smaller, rural settlements, living simpler lives rooted in agriculture, hunting, fishing, and animal rearing.

⚒️ Chalcolithic Transformation

In this period, the people used tools made of stone and copper — hence, it’s called Chalcolithic (Chalco = copper, Lithic = stone).

🧠 Think of this as a civilisation that “downsized” — it didn’t vanish, but adapted to new realities by becoming rural, self-sufficient, and simpler.

🏕️ Key Late Harappan Sites

Let’s look at some key regional cultures of the Late Harappan phase:

Region	Cultural Phase
Harappa (Punjab)	Cemetery H culture
Sindh (Pakistan)	Jhukar culture
Gujarat	Rangpur culture
Haryana	Late Siswal culture
Swat (Pakistan)	Gandhara Grave culture

Each of these shows regional variations, but they all retain Harappan elements like pottery styles or burial practices.

🇮🇳 Indianness of the Harappan Culture

Now here’s a question UPSC may nudge you to think about:

Was the Harappan culture truly Indian in origin, or was it influenced from outside?

Let’s understand this:

🌱 Local Roots, Not Foreign Imports

Although Harappan trade with Mesopotamia and other regions is well-established, there is no strong evidence that external forces were responsible for the rise of Harappan cities.

Instead, archaeological studies suggest:

• Harappan culture evolved out of earlier local settlements in Baluchistan, Sindh, and Kalibangan.
• It was likely an organic progression of indigenous farming communities into full-fledged urban centres.

🧱 What Made Harappan Culture Distinct?

Compared to Western Asian civilisations like Mesopotamia, the Harappans stood apart in several ways:

Feature	Harappans	Mesopotamians
Town Planning	Grid-pattern cities with drainage	Haphazard growth
Houses	Brick-lined bathrooms, wells, stairs	Simple rectangular structures
Drainage	Underground system	Rare, rudimentary drainage
Bricks	Mastery in baked bricks	Mostly sun-dried mud bricks
Writing	Unique undeciphered script	Cuneiform
Pottery & Seals	Distinct, local designs	Very different styles

👉 Clearly, Harappan culture was deeply rooted in Indian soil, even though it interacted with the outside world.

📚 What Can We Learn from the Harappans Today?

This section is less history, more philosophy — the life lessons of a civilisation that existed over 4,000 years ago.

🏙️ Urban Planning

Harappan cities were grid-based, with wide roads intersecting at right angles. This inspired modern urban design focused on:

• Traffic flow
• Space optimisation
• Civic functionality

🧼 Sanitation and Hygiene

With their underground drainage systems and in-house bathrooms, Harappans understood hygiene centuries before modern sewerage systems existed.

Swachh Bharat was ancient wisdom too!

🚪 Privacy in Architecture

Most homes had no ground-level windows, and entrances were angled or walled to ensure privacy — a concept still valued in modern Indian homes.

💧 Water Sustainability

At Dholavira, 16 rainwater harvesting reservoirs were built. The Harappans practised environmentally responsible engineering—an inspiration for today’s sustainable development goals.

🤝 Peaceful Coexistence

Despite their achievements, the Harappans show no signs of conquest or militarism. They thrived on trade, not war — highlighting that economic cooperation is the real pillar of civilisation.

🧭 Conclusion: A Civilisation That Lives On

So, even though the Harappan urban centres declined, their spirit did not disappear. Their legacy survives:

• In rural cultures that followed
• In genetic continuity confirmed by DNA
• In Indian traditions of planning, sanitation, and craftsmanship

The Harappan civilisation is not just history — it’s part of our cultural DNA.

🧱 Discovering the Harappan Civilisation: From Confusion to Clarity

Imagine trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the picture looks like — that’s exactly how early archaeologists approached Indian history. The discovery of the Harappan Civilisation was not a single moment of brilliance, but rather a gradual unfolding of historical understanding, filled with assumptions, mistakes, and breakthroughs.

🕵️‍♂️ Cunningham’s Confusion: When the Past Was Misread

Sir Alexander Cunningham, often called the father of Indian archaeology, worked in the mid-19th century, but he had a serious limitation — his mindset was rooted in textual evidence.

• He believed Indian civilisation began in the Ganga Valley, around 6th century BCE, with the rise of Mahajanapadas.
• He depended heavily on Chinese Buddhist pilgrims’ accounts to locate ancient cities.

🔍 In 1872, when Cunningham found a seal at Harappa, he couldn’t comprehend its true antiquity because:

• Harappa wasn’t mentioned in ancient texts.
• The seal had a hump-less bull, unfamiliar to Indian iconography — so he assumed it was foreign!

🧠 Insight: This shows the dangers of rigid assumptions — history demands imagination guided by evidence.

📢 Formal Announcement of Discovery: From Seals to Civilisation

The real turning point came in the early 20th century.

🔨 Excavations:

• 1921: Daya Ram Sahni excavated Harappa, uncovering seals, beads, and painted pottery.
• 1922: Rakhal Das Banerji began excavations at Mohenjodaro, finding seals, copper tools, and crucibles.

Both sites yielded similar artefacts, even though they were 640 km apart.

🌍 In 1924, the ASI Director-General John Marshall pieced the puzzle together. He:

• Recognised these sites were part of the same civilisation.
• Published an article in The Illustrated London News on 20 September 1924, calling it:

“First Light on a Long-forgotten Civilisation”

This marked the formal birth of the Indus Valley Civilisation in world history.

🏛️ John Marshall and Excavation Practices

John Marshall, though visionary, made a fundamental error:

• He dug sites horizontally with uniform cuts — treating all layers the same.
• This led to mixing artefacts from different time periods, making interpretation difficult.

Despite this, Marshall’s interest in daily life patterns was a significant leap from earlier excavators.

🪖 Wheeler’s Precision: Stratigraphy and Scientific Method

In 1944, R.E.M. Wheeler, an ex-army brigadier, took charge of the ASI and introduced scientific methods:

• Emphasised stratigraphy: digging layer by layer, to maintain chronological order.
• Made archaeology more accurate and reliable.

This helped separate Pre-Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Post-Harappan phases clearly.

📌 UPSC Tip: Stratigraphy is essential in archaeology because it helps reconstruct the timeline of habitation.

🌍 Significance of the Discovery

The Harappan Civilisation’s discovery was a watershed moment in Indian history:

Significance	Explanation
1. Rewrote Indian History	Until then, it was believed settled life in India began in 6th century BCE. Harappa pushed it back by over 3,000 years!
2. Bronze Age Urbanism	It revealed that India had a civilisation as sophisticated as Mesopotamia and Egypt around 2600 BCE.

🧱 The Plight of Harappa: When Bricks Were More Valued Than History

In the mid-1800s, the British began laying a railway line from Lahore to Multan.

• They found Harappa to be a convenient mound full of baked bricks.
• Thousands of ancient bricks were used as ballast for laying the tracks.
• Alexander Cunningham later noted: “Enough bricks were taken to build 100 miles of railway!”

😔 Sadly, Harappa was looted before it was understood, while Mohenjodaro survived better.

✍️ Final Reflection

The journey of discovering the Harappan Civilisation teaches us two critical lessons:

1. History needs imagination — but grounded in evidence.
2. What is lost can often never be recovered — preserving heritage is as important as discovering it.