![]() ![]() These ancient Indus sewerage and drainage systems were far in advance of anything found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East. ![]() Within their homes, some rooms had facilities in which waste water was directed to covered drains. Within the city, people obtained water from wells. The urban planning included the world’s first known urban sanitation systems. Hygiene was also important to the inhabitants. Modern scholars tend to see in this the influence of a religion which places a string emphasis on ritual washing – much like modern Hinduism. These clearly placed a high priority on accessibility to water. The quality of municipal town planning indicates that these communities were controlled by efficient governments. 3300 BCE, a sure sign of mass production, and hence of increased wealth.įinally, around 2600 BCE, the mature, fully urban phase of Indus civilization appeared. Craft manufacture became more specialized and sophisticated. Trade networks expanded, particularly with the west. 5000 BCE they made pottery, as well as shell- and stone artifacts, There is evidence of trade links with peoples to north, south and west.īy the start of the 4th millennium farming communities dotted the flood plain of the river Indus and from the mid-4th millennium, proto-urban settlements had appeared which shared traits which would later appear in Indus Valley cities: rigid city planning, massive brick walls and bull motifs in their art. The earliest of these had no pottery (to use the jargon, theirs was an a-ceramic culture) but by c. In any event, small farming and pastoral villages spread across the northwest of the subcontinent. It looks as though hunter-gatherers already established in the region either developed farming practices completely independently from those in the Middle East, or at the least adapted the “package” to the extent of domesticating local animals rather than using alien species. It seems therefore that farming was not simply brought in to South Asia by colonists from further west, bringing with them their “package” of crops and animals. There is evidence for continuity from earlier, hunter-gatherer times in the style of stone tools found and the type of cattle here were smaller than those found in the Middle East, suggesting that local Zebu cattle had been domesticated. ![]() There are some contrary indications to this idea, however. This is the closest area in South Asia to the Middle East this, along with the fact that their staple crops, wheat and barley, were those grown to the west, makes it a natural inference that farming peoples arrived here from outside the region, ultimately from the Middle East. The earliest remains of Neolithic communities have been found in western Pakistan. Prior to 6500 BCE, the Indian sub-continent was home to hunter-gatherers (as in the rest of the world, bas some regions in the Middle East, where farming had been spreading since 8000 BCE). The Indus plain is surrounded by high mountains, desert and ocean, and at that time there were dense forests and swamps to the east. The huge Indus river system waters a rich agricultural landscape. Settlements which were closely related to the core civilization – and may have been colonies of it – have been found in Afghanistan and central Asia. The Indus Valley civilization covered most of what is today Pakistan and the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab. Indus Valley Civilization Map (click to see in atlas)
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