Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization

The Harappan Civilisation (HC) was spread over large parts of western region of the Indian Subcontinent. Its earliest roots can be found from 7000 BC in Mehrgarh but its peak urban period is around 2500 to 1900 BC. It declined completely by 1300 BC. At its peak, it covered more than 30 per cent of the present landmass of the Indian Subcontinent. The entire evidence for it is archaeological. It is classified as proto-historic since in the absence of deciphered written records it is not possible to create a detailed scenario of its evolution (Possehl 1999). From archaeological data, the timeline of the HC can be discerned, but the archaeological evidence of individual regions is not detailed enough to permit a systematic study of the rise and fall of HC (cf. Wright 2010). However, a lot of work has been done to understand other cultures and their evolution. We compare the knowledge on the evolution of other cultures (Snooks 2002) and evaluate the archaeological and other data available for HC based on ten parameters (Murdock and Provost 1973) to create a possible scenario of the evolution of the Harappan Civilization (HC). We show that the pattern of HC can be divided into 4 major phases. The first three phases mark an increase in the standard of living triggered by the arrival of a specific organizational change while the fourth phase is marked by a decline due to the failure of the society to solve the problem of increasing needs of the civilization because of the delay in arrival of new technologies. Social Evolution & History / September 2011 28 BROAD FEATURES OF HARAPPAN CIVILISATION The Harappan Civilisation (HC) covered an area of about 1.5 million square kilometres (Agrawal 2009: 1) at its peak. It was spread over the present day western parts of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan covering 30 per cent of the present landmass of the region. However, since all the evidence for HC is archaeological, it is generally classified as proto-historic. Here we use the knowledge from other civilizations to create a comprehensive scenario about the growth if HC and its critical landmarks. HC had several features indicating a high degree of uniformity in life-style at its several urban centres (see, e.g., Wright 2010; Agrawal 2007; Possehl 1999). The most spectacular aspect of HC is that at its peak, it boasted of large well-planned cities. Joshi (2008: 48–49) lists 10 distinct characteristics that identify sites of HC at its peak. These are: 1. Characteristic written materials and seals. 2. Beads and other jewellery. 3. Standardized brick sizes in the ratio of 1 x 2 x 4. 4. Planned towns with citadels, platforms and podiums and specific burial patterns. 5. Standardized weights. 6. Black or red painted pottery. 7. Parallel sided blades. 8. Copper and bronze articles. 9. Terracotta toys. 10. Cotton, barley and wheat. To this, features such as sophisticated water management can also be added. HC was complex and well spread out with a fair degree of sophistication and homogenisation even though regional variations did exist. Due to an apparent discontinuity between HC and later Indian civilisation and the lack of long written records, the manner of rise, stabilisation and eventual fall of the HC is not clear. Farming and related activities arise in the subcontinent by 7000 BC in Mehrgarh (Wright 2010: 48). This was to prove crucial and Mehrgarh played an important role in developing early farming technology and keeping contacts with settlements farther west (Bellwood 2008: 91). It also had a large number of small and medium size sites all over the Indus plane by 4000 BC (Possehl 1999). However, the first large city-state arises, not in the region of Vahia, Yadav / Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization 29 Indus valley close to Mehrgarh but in a far away region of Hakra Basin in Harappa around 3200 BC and seems to be an indigenous development. There is substantial evidence in the form of the rise and nature of small town conglomerations all across the HC region to suggest that self-governing communities must have arisen at several locations that did not eventually transform into states with large population on their own (Kenoyer 2008). This can be discerned from the fact that the rise of habitation sites in the HC are not random but arise in clusters of different sizes with time (Possehl 1999; Kenoyer 2008). Only some of these later become cities. Even these cities do not rise at the cost of the dwellings in the neighbourhood but in concert with them (Kenoyer 2008) as can be estimated from the number of satellites sites that grow with them. The city of Harappa rises as an isolated small cluster of communities around 3200 BC on one of the tributaries of Indus River, more than 3000 years after the first agriculture in Mehrgarh about 1000 km farther west. Other cities of HC such as Mohenjo Daro appear between Mehrgarh and Harappa on the banks of Indus River around 2500 BC. Harappa also continues to be inhabited for about 400 years after other large cities in the HC are deserted and well after the drying of Ghaggar-Hakra further south. A conglomeration of small to medium size settlements appear along the GhaggarHakra basin and comparable sized settlements also arise further South East of Harappa at the mouth of the Ghaggar-Hakra Basin around 2500 BC, a period which sees a very steep rise in the number of inhabited sites. After 1900 BC, there is a dramatic shift further East into the Gangetic Valley. Dholavira – Lothal complex in Gujarat region was apparently specifically set up for trade. It is situated in the middle of the great Rann of Kutch. At its active period, Dholavira was a busy prosperous city and Lothal was at the edge of the Gulf of Khambhat. Even then, it has been an arid region severely short of fresh water. The Gujarat complex was created in a hostile environment made habitable by major hydro-engineering works. Dholavira was inhabited from 2500 BC and is deserted around 1900 BC. Other small and medium size sites continue to appear in Saurashtra region after that. Social Evolution & History / September 2011 30 Since HC had no fast means of communication and since it lacked the knowledge of iron, it seems difficult that an ideologically homogenous single state could have existed over the vast geographical and temporal scale. HC lacks several characteristics of a single Nation State but it clearly shared a lot of knowledge giving a feeling of a homogenous civilisation with a high level of technological uniformity. For the states to emerge, it is necessary that they have a sufficient number of people to form a complex stratified society, control a specified territory and have a surplus to maintain the specialists and the privileged categories (Claessen and Oosten 1996: 5). This apart, a defining ideology must exist, which explains and justifies a hierarchical administrative organization and socio-political inequality (see also Grinin 2003). Most civilisations go through various stages of growth from the family to the local groups to collective fiefdoms, chiefdom, and archaic state on to the nation-state (Johnson and Earle 2000: 245). It should be noted that formation of state is not inevitable and that if pre-warned a society may actually not adopt to transfer to being a ‘state’ since state necessary involves stratification of society (Claessen 2002). Since HC can be taken to be a civilisation, it is likely that they too went through some of these stages. However, it is also not clear how and when the different regions of HC evolved since very little is known about the social organisation of this civilisation. The exact level of the civilisation and its transformation from early state analogues to the state (see Grinin 2003 for general discussion) is unclear (cf. Wright 2010: 16–17 for specific issues of HC). It is not even clear if it had the social structure of one or more nation states. The town layout, on the other hand, clearly suggests that there was a stratification in the society. The HC was formed by a conglomeration of at least three distinct groups with their own pattern of development, growth and time line (Wright 2010: 311). They were interrelated with cultural and technological exchange. While their high level of standardisation has been noted by several authors (see, e.g., Joshi 2008: 48–49) but detailed studies shows that even in the highly standardised world of writing signs of HC, there are small and important differences between regions (at the same time, their art on miniatures are collected in CISI volumes (Joshi and Parpola 1987; Shah and Parpola Vahia, Yadav / Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization 31 1991) shows a very high level of sophistication and complexity. Their best art work on miniatures, highly standardised use of bricks and weights (see, e.g., Vahia and Yadav 2007, 2010; Yadav and Vahia 2011) all seem to arise around 2500 BC to the extent that Kenoyer (2008) has suggested that the truly urban period of HC should be considered from 2500 BC to 1900 BC and this too can be divided into smaller finer time lines of growth and decay. Possehl (1990) has pointed out that in a small time interval of about 100 to 150 years around 2600 BC, the civilisation seems to have transformed from Pre-urban to Early Harappan State with sudden emergence of the following features: 1) writing on well designed and carefully made seals with high quality animal motifs; 2) town planning and development of: a) massive brick platforms, b) well-digging, c) drainage system, d) grid plans for city; 3) appearance of widely used system of weights and measures; 4) other changes in a wide variety of lifestyle material such as ceramic corpus; 5) new art forms and stylistic growth such as new human and animal figurines; 6) distinctive Harappan black – on red slip painting style; 7) core trends of urbanisation such as: a) social stratification, b) apparent emergence of the state and political differentiation, c) craft and career specialisation, d) creation of cities and a new form of social regulation. He notes that these changes are in continuity rather than discontinuity. It therefore seems that around 2500 (+ 100) BC, HC transformed from a loose confederation to a state. Precipitation into a state comes generally in response to internal pressures rather than external threat as there is no clear evidence of large-scale conflicts in HC. Once the internal stresses become severe, the pre-state is forced to create surplus to permit specialization and the state came into beSocial Evolution & History / September 2011 32 ing. In many ways, the civilization shows the signs of rising from internal dynamics. There are few signs of large-scale conflicts. There are no mega structures to glorify the great. At the same time, the technology for large-scale structures was used essentially for utilitarian purposes such as the Great Bath or raised platforms to set up a whole city. Their water management was far in advance of their period. Possehl (1999) has listed more than 2,500 sites that were part of the region that marks the spread of HC at its peaks. However, most of these sites are small to medium sized and less than 10 sites have an area exceeding 0.5 km (Joshi 2008). Also, the urban centres continue to be surrounded by smaller sites indicating that the formation of an urban centre neither stunted the sustenance of small habitation sites nor did it destroy them. This suggests that the relation between the urban and rural sites must have been more symbiotic rather than adversarial. Given the fertility of land and the mobility that the rivers in that part of the subcontinent, all three kinds of population groups – trading groups, self-governing groups and rogue groups would have all found easy subsistence in the region. With these conditions met, even small groups of population of about 5,000 or more can form seed societies. These societies can borrow from the ideas of urbanization and city-state from developments elsewhere. Kenoyer (2008) has noted that the major step in standardization and expanded urbanisation in all three sub-regions arises around 2500 BC. At that stage it is by far the most extensively spread out civilisation. Turchin (2009; cf. see figure 2) has compiled the data of several civilisations and shown to cover an area well below 0.3 million square kilometers while HC had an area of 1.5 million square kilometers indicating that no equivalent cultures existed elsewhere. Hence, a lot of developments must have been internal to HC. This is also borne out by the uncommon nature of their art and writing as well as architecture. HC went through several phases of development. In the initial phase, it went through early phases of farming and animal domestication at Mehrgarh, probably induced by the knowledge developed in West Asia (Bellwood 2008: 89–90) around 7000 BC. Mehrgarh was on the steppes of Tobe Kakkar Range near Bolan Pass. This was followed by a general expansion across the Indus Vahia, Yadav / Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization 33 and Ghaggar-Hakra Valley over the next 3000 years with several small and medium size sites. Then around 3000 BC, the first urbanisation begins with a sudden and spectacular rise in several major cities by 2600 BC (Wright 2010: 96; Joshi 2008; Possehl 1990) and formalization of many important aspects such as weights and bricks etc. over the entire region (Kenoyer 1998). Around 1900 BC, for reasons that are not at all apparent, the civilization went into a sudden decline and the last of the cities were de-urbanized by 1700 BC. The reasons for these sudden and dramatic changes are not apparent and their precipitating factors are not clear. Conventionally it is assumed that the civilisation ended due to natural calamity, overexploitation of resources or drying up of one of its important rivers called Ghaggar-Hakra due to an earthquake in its upper reaches. However, Mehrgarh and Mohenjo Daro are both deserted around 1900 BC even though neither is close to the GhaggarHakra Basin. Hence, the sites must have had symbiotic relations with other sites on the Ghaggar-Hakra basin to the extent that the catastrophic drying out of this river had equally disastrous effects on them. Wright (2010: 42) has attempted to correlate the decay of these cities as arising due to changes in monsoon patterns. However, the changes seem to be small and cannot fully account for the fall of the civilisation. It seems that the fall of the civilisation seems to have been triggered by internal reasons rather than external factors (Wright 2010: 308–320). The fact that this was a decay rather than destruction is highlighted by Kenoyer (2008). Discussing the environmental evidence, he concluded that there was no substantial evidence of change in weather pattern. He also shows that the decay was gradual, at least in Harappa where signs of overcrowding, decay beginning with loss of the elite along with the disappearance of signs of complex mercantile activities such as weights and seals. Wright (2010), Kenoyer (2008) and Possehl (1999) have created a detailed time line of the HC and have identified three different subcultures within the broad HC. Based on these and other studies, following observations can be made. 1) HC has its roots in Mehrgarh, west of the Indus River. The site shows earliest evidence of farming dating to 7000 BC. However, it remains a medium sized one all through the growth and decay of HC (Wright 2010: 51–78). Social Evolution & History / September 2011 34 2) The first urban city, Harappa, makes its appearance in Ghaggar-Hakra basin much further east from Mehrgarh and far from Indus River around 3200 BC. 3) Its most sophisticated city, built on a specifically created platform, Mohenjo Daro appears on the Indus Valley around 2600 BC (Possehl 2002: 101-103). 4) Later cities also appear further south in the arid region of Kutch in Gujarat that apparently had a sea link to West Asia (Wright, 2010: 216–217). 5) There are several sites and site clusters distributed over the entire region. 6) There are at least three distinct clusters of cultures with similar traits and physical proximity (see, e.g., Gangal et al. 2010; Wright 2010: 311–312). 7) There is no clear evidence of powerful central authority or large-scale evidence of militarization or standing army of the cities. 8) The rise of its urban centres also coincides with the rise in the number of rural centres indicating a symbiotic relation between the two (Wright 2010). 9) Considering that the sites are essentially along river basin, rivers seems to have been their primary mode of communication, but models of carts have also been found which seem to have been a local mode of travel. 10) It was not a highly religious or heavily centralised Civilisation but did accept a high level of standardisation in some vital aspects such as writing and seal making, weight measures, brick dimension and manufacturing, pottery etc. from around 2600 BC. 11) The culture makes a dramatic increase in sophistication around 2500 BC and dies out equally dramatically around 1900 BC (Wright 2010: 308). We try and interpret this evidence of the general growth of HC with regard to other civilisations. We assume that given the level of sophistication of the architecture of the HC cities, its high quality of art on miniature objects and archaeological evidence of social organisation, it must have been a state and a civilisation in the formal sense of the word. In a detailed recent study, Wright (2010) has discussed the changes in the lifestyle and economy of the Indus people from early settlements at Mehrgarh to the post-urban phase showing that the civilisation was clearly well established over an area of Vahia, Yadav / Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization 35 1.5 million square kilometres (Agrawal 2009: 1). Its influence extended up to the West Asia where it seems to have been referred to as Meluhha whose mercantile practices were adopted in West Asia (Wright 2010: 215–232). Renfrew (1989) has suggested that the practice of writing and the development of a coherent system of signs, a script, is something which is seen only in complex societies and hence, writing itself should be considered a feature of civilisations. Harappan writing certainly has a lot of characteristics of sophisticated writing (Rao et al. 2009a, 2009b; Yadav et al. 2008a, 2008b; Yadav et al. 2010). Therefore, we can use knowledge obtained from other civilisations to gauge how the civilisation must have developed and compare it with available archaeological data. For the present discussion, we assume that urbanisation is itself a sufficient proof of the formation of state (Possehl 1990). Kenoyer (1997) has suggested that they were not only cities but were probably republican in nature (see Wright 2010: 18–19). In the absence of deciphered, and extensive writing, or comprehensive discussions in other contemporary cultures, detailed chronology of HC cannot be created. The only way in which some semblance of history of HC can be created is by comparing its structure and landmarks with those of other well studied civilizations. Against this background, we try and create a more quantitative picture of the rise and fall of HC. ANALYSIS OF HARAPPAN CIVILISATION We adopt Snooks' model (2002) for the HC. The model suggested by Snooks (Ibid.) for the growth of civilizations is given in Fig. 1 below. Harper (2007) has discussed the limits of mathematical modelling in social sciences and our discussions here are subject to the same reservations. Snooks (2002) suggests that societies keep expanding till their potential human productivity (P) exceeds the maximum capacity. When the two meet, the society is no longer able to expand to meet rising demands and the system collapses and quality of life falls until a new technological revolution increases the potential for increasing productivity again. Societies can get into instability and populations can collapse due to a variety of reasons (Turchin 2005). Turchin (Ibid.) has emSocial Evolution & History / September 2011 36 phasized the role of instabilities in the pre-industrial states in their political collapse and breakdown which can cause population collapse using the demographic – structural theory. We suggest that at crucial stages, when a civilization reaches the level of maximal exploitation rate of its technological and organizational base, it must either invent a new level of organization or technology to improve its standard of living or instability will prove catastrophic. Fig. 1. Pattern of Human Productivity (based on Snooks, 2002). The y-axis is arbitrary. The boxes represent the changes that mark the transition from one level of existence to the next. Fig. 2. Comparison of evolution of maximum and real productivity with time and effects of delayed innovation We note that the new level of organization need not be a technological innovation. It may include a better reorganization of society, labour reorganization or better technologies. In extreme cases, even simple expansion of living space and occupation of surrounding habitations may provide a short-term relief but such solutions would be short-termed without a specific transition to a higher levVahia, Yadav / Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization 37 el of organization and significantly improved quality of life. Since it is generally engineering that has the best potential for providing these new growth avenues, at its peak, a civilization must invest maximally in science and technology, not so much in the idle pursuit of the gifted but in the hope that they will come up with the next level of innovation that can increase the potential of growth once the presently available technologies have been fully exploited. We formally include this feature in Snooks' model in Fig. 2 but note that Snooks (2002) suggests this possibility. In addition to the theoretical limit of the human development index, we plot the real growth by monotonically increasing curve below that approaches the theoretical limit as the culture expands. This generalization is also in line with the work of Harper (2007) who has analyzed the work of Frank and Thompson (2005) for the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age civilizations. 1. Instabilities in civilizations We define the difference between the real and theoretical growth pattern by a term ΔP. When ΔP approaches zero, the culture has essentially expanded to its maximum potential. The culture must then undergo a technological revolution in order to survive (Snooks, 2002) since at this stage any other avenues such as expanding the physical span or even attacking neighbouring habitations will not produce enough long-term advantages for expansion of the culture. On reaching ΔP ~0, the society is forced into a choice of either living in equilibrium or instability. We argue that living in equilibrium is inherently unstable. Any technology and its increasing exploitation implies improved standard of living, reduced infant mortality and longer life expectancy. Hence even if a community follows a minimal replacement policy for birth rate (how this can be achieved in the absence of sophisticated birth control mechanisms is a separate question), the longer life expectancy alone will increase the population with time. An aggressively pursued population control can invert the population triangle causing its own set of instabilities. Also, in an organized environment, the natural human tendency to acquire competitive advantage and improved standard of living (if nothing else, than to attract a better mate) will not allow an Social Evolution & History / September 2011 38 equilibrium to be setup. Hence, it is difficult for any society to sustain equilibrium in standard of living by common consent since it is inherently an unstable condition. Hence, change is the most constant part of human evolution. It can be for better or worse depending on the situation. If continuously new technologies or organizational restructuring come then the society will progress to next level of organization. But it can be self destructive if resources to improve living conditions are not available. In this case, individuals will try to improve their own lot by any means available (by migration or violence) and such a system will result in chaos. As we shall see below, in Harappa for example, it seems that that drying up of a major river occurred at a time when the technological exploitation had peaked. The first group whose absence is felt at the beginning of decline is the rich and the merchants (Kenoyer 2008). Authority needs a lot of resources to maintain order and in the absence of authority, chaos is inevitable. Hence at the peak of the exploitation of its current capabilities, a society is essentially in a self-contradictory course. It not only enjoys highest level of prosperity, but also must quickly come up with the next level of rise to avoid a collapse in near future. In the absence of such a revolution that can bring about a quantitative change in living standards, the society will fail to meet the expectation of the culture and it will degenerate into chaos that will eventually engulf it (Turchin 2005). There is however, no a priori reason why the technological revolution should coincide with ΔP approaching zero (it can occur earlier), even though this is highly probable because, at the time when ΔP approaches 0, the society has maximum resources available for exploration of other avenues, as it is as rich as it can get with the existing technological base. As the society becomes ever richer, it finds it increasingly difficult to meet the increasing expectations of its population and heads to chaos. If the technological breakthrough does not come at its scheduled time, the chaos ensuing from the inability to meet the increasing demand and expectations may actually result in a fall in the standard of living (Turchin 2005) by a certain quantity Δx (Fig. 2) before the eventual technological revolution sets it on the path of increasing human cultural evolution again. The time taken for recovery Δt depends on the sensitivity of the culture, the fall Δx, and the leadership at that crucial juncture. The value of Δx and Vahia, Yadav / Reconstructing the History of Harappan Civilization 39 Δt are arbitrary and sensitive to the exact environment in which the civilization existed. We will discuss their quantitative values later. With this in mind, we revisit the data presented in this study on the HC. We summarize its different stages as follows. 2. A model for HC Murdock and Provost, (1973) have proposed a manner of quantifying life style based on ten major parameters each evaluated on a five-point scale. These are given in Appendix 1. We evaluate these for the Indus Civilization against these parameters. Criteria for quantifying the level of sophistication of a culture In order to quantify the changes, we adopt the scales proposed by Murdock and Provost (1973). Each criterion is ordered according to a five-point scale of relative complexity (Appendix 1). 3. Modeling the growth of Indus Civilization Based on these criteria, we evaluate the status of various phases of this culture in table 1. We plot this data on the basis of above criteria in Fig. 3. We define four stages of growth of the culture with the first revolution in farming around 7000 BC, the second one of introduction of metals around 5000 BC, Urbanization around 3000 BC. The induction of Iron is shown in 1000 BC. Against this, we have plotted the real rise in cultural complexity based on general discussions.