The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization

Contents: Introduction. I. Indus cities and the Aryans: Historical conquerors, mythical marauders or Vedic Harappans?: A. First formulations: Chanda vs. Chanda: 1. The Indus Valley in the Vedic period/Ramaprasad Chanda. 2. The Aryans: a study of Indo-European origins/V. Gordon Childe. 3. Survival of the prehistoric civilization of the Indus Valley/Ramaprasad Chanda. B. The debate continues: 4. Harappa 1946: the defences and cemetery R37/R.E.M. Wheeler. 5. The supposed carnage of the city people by the Aryans/P.V. Kane. 6. The relation of Harappan culture with the Rgveda/A.D. Pusalker. 7. The mythical massacre at Mohenjodaro/George F. Dales. 8. It is time to rethink/B.B. Lal. 9. Have Aryans been identified in the prehistoric skeletal record from South Asia? Biological anthropology and concepts of ancient races/Kenneth A.R. Kennedy. 10. Aryan invasions over four millennia/Edmund Leach. II. Environment and Collapse: A. Silt and sediment: evidence and interpretation: 1. Chanhu-daro excavations/E.J.H. Mackay. 2. Lothal: a Harappan port town/S.R. Rao. 3. Bio-geological evidence bearing on the decline of the Indus Valley civilization/M.R. Sahni. 4. The Indus flood plain and the ‘Indus’ civilization/H.T. Lambrick. 5. The consequences of river changes for the Harappan settlements in Cholistan/M.R. Mughal. 6. Kalibangan: death from natural causes/Robert Raikes. 7. Remote sensing of the ‘Lost’ Saraswati river/Yash Pal, Baldev Sahai, R.K. Sood and D.P. Agrawal. 8. High-resolution Holocene environmental changes in the Thar desert, Northwestern India/Y. Enzel, L.L. Ely, S. Mishra, R. Ramesh, R. Amit, B. Lazar, S.N. Rajaguru, V.R. Baker and A. Sandler. 9. Climate, a factor in the rise and fall of the Indus civilization—evidence from Rajasthan and beyond/V.N. Misra. B. The impact of Harappan on the environment: 10. The origin, character and decline of an early civilization/Walter A. Fairservis, Jr.  III. From a City Civilization to a Phase of Devolution: A. Continuity or Change?: 1. The late Harappans/Dilip K. Chakrabarti. 2. Conquerors from the West/Stuart Piggott. 3. Excavation at Rangpur and other explorations in Gujarat/S.R. Rao. 4. Survival? Revival? Import?/A. Ghosh. 5. Dholavira/R.S. Bisht. 6. Late Harappan settlements of Western India, with special reference to Gujarat/Kuldeep K. Bhan. 7. Continuity and change in the North Kachi plain (Baluchistan, Pakistan) at the beginning of the second millennium BC/J.F. Jarrige. 8. The patterns and problems in the history of crops/Dilip K. Chakrabarti. 9. Rice and ragi at Harappa: preliminary results by plant opal analysis/H. Fujiwara, M.R. Mughal, A. Sasaki and T. Matano. 10. Raw material usage and trade routes/Nayanjot Lahiri. Bibliography.

"In September 1924 John Marshall announced a momentous archaeological discovery: ‘the civilization of the Indus Valley’. This phenomenon has become more generally known as the Indus or Harappan civilization. Names like Mohenjodaro and Harappa have been assimilated into India’s cultural heritage and the Indus civilization remains among the most popular and researched themes in the archaeology of India.

Marshall’s understanding of that discovery was to radically alter perceptions of the antiquity of urban efflorescence in the Indian subcontinent. Soon after, the Indus yielded a slow flood of fierce disagreements concerning the trajectory of its urban evolution, its cultural form, and its decline. Perhaps the fiercest of all these debates, which continues to rage, is about the “real’ reasons for the end of city culture within this civilization. Did the cities dramatically collapse or was there a steady urban decline? Was the decline and fall of this civilization a result of inroads by certain notorious Aryans? Or should the idea of these invasions be relegated to the world of mythology? How did rivers, earthquakes and climatic shifts contribute to the process of disintegration? Was the end of the civilization marked by a cultural fracture? Or did its traditions persist?

The key scholarly interventions which cover all these questions and disputes have been reproduced within this volume. The readings included range from essays going back to the 1920s to those that have appeared over the past decade. The issues, the hypotheses, and the questions raised by archaeologists, scientists and historians all find place in this meticulously compiled book. The readings are prefaced by a long new introduction by the editor, outlining the history, developments, and complexities of the subject.

This work constitutes essential reading for all who are interested in the decline and fall of India’s first civilization. Students of ancient Indian history and archaeology will find it indispensable.”

[Nayanjot Lahiri has also written The Archaeology of Indian Trade Routes and Pre-Ahom Assam.]