Civilization in the Indus Valley

Civilization in the Indus Valley
The Indus Valley offered the best conditions for agriculture on the Indian subcontinent. At first, people built small villages and farmed the surrounding land. By about 2500 B.C., not long after people in the Fertile Crescent and the Nile Valley had developed civilizations, the early people of the Indus Valley built cities and formed a civilization of their own.

Settling the Indus Valley
Fed by melting snows, the Indus River tumbles down from the high mountains, carrying rocks, gravel, and silt. It flows south and west onto a hot, dry plain in present-day Pakistan. Each spring, the Indus River spills over its banks and the old soil is made fertile by a new layer of silt. Another river, the Sarasvati (SAR»ahs»vuh»tee), once flowed parallel to the Indus. A series of earthquakes shifted the waters of its tributaries to other rivers. Today the Sarasvati is a dried-up riverbed. Early farmers in these river valleys grew barley and other grains in the rich soil. These grains supplemented, or added to, the food people got by hunting animals and gathering wild plants.

People in the Indus Valley built their villages on large mounds made from mud and stones. The purpose of the mounds was to keep the villages above the flooded land. Over time these villages grew to become cities. Eventually, a great civilization formed one that would cover present-day Pakistan and parts of what are now Afghanistan and northern India.

Some of the largest and most important early cities in the Indus Valley were Harappa (huh*RA»puh), Lothal, and Mohenjo-Daro (moh*HEN»joh DAR»oh).

Harappa is named after a Pakistani town where the first evidence of the civilization was found. It became so important that this early civilization is often called the Harappan civilization. Many archaeological discoveries have also been made at Lothal, which lies near the coast of the Arabian Sea. However, the most complete evidence of city life in the early Indus Valley has been found at Mohenjo-Daro.

What were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa?

Posted in: Indus Valley