Indus Valley Civilization - Introduction

We live the Present. That which you know which has already happened is History. Then what is ancient history or pre-history?

History Vs Ancient History: 

History is conventionally studied from epics, scriptures, rock edicts, other written messages found by archaeologists (For eg, Arthasastra helped us understand the administrative and revenue structure of 3rd Centuary B.C). But, there is a time before which there was simply no script. There was just no written language. Ergo, no books/scriptures,etc., 

This precisely is the distinction between History and Ancient History: the existence of written language or scriptures. The period of History before the existence of any written language is called Ancient History. This is the period of History which is studied and understood from other evidences like fossils, tools, sediment rocks etc., To make it more clear to you, Ancient history is vast. Very vast. It includes everything that has happened from the time Man has evolved to the time somewhere around 3300 B.C i.e., the time when written language(s) came into existence.

This vast time period can be divided in to many sections. One such famous division is based on the metals used in the making of predominant tools used in that time period. Mind you, every division of history has a basis. It is very important to know on what basis the history was classified. 

1.   Stone Age, lasted for about 3.4 Million years. During this time the use of stone tools was predominant. Fire was discovered by rubbing stones against each other. Ancient History involves three main divisions: 

·   Paleolithic age: 2.5 Million years - 10,000 B.C. Climate was very cold. Tools were huge and made of stone; blunt and unfinished. Used to hunt the very large mammoths.

·   Mesolithic age:10,000 B.C - 5,000 B.C. Climate was relatively warmer. Tools decreased in size and made of stone; made to hunt animals that grew relatively smaller with the climate getting warmer.

·   Neolithic age: 5000 B.C - 3,500 B.C. Climate was getting warmer. Tools decreased in size with increase precision and sharpness; made of stone; made to hunt animals that grew small in size with the climate getting warmer.

2.   Bronze Age, lasted from 3300 B.C to around 1300 B.C. Bronze was predominantly used for various purposes.

3.   Iron Age, lasted from around 1200 B.C to 200 B.C. With the advent of Iron, it took over the existing metals. The applications widely increased. 

Now let's jump in to History i.e., to 3500 - 3300 B.C. When you talk of History, the most important key-word is : Civilization.

Civilization n. / can be defined as the association of people; organization of society; systematic approach to building a social life with a common long term goal. Having all that, a Civilization usually has urban cities, social stratification, writing systems etc.,

Lets get some more insights in to the criteria for building a civilization. The math was simple for the people of history or at least it seems so. The mantra is: 

'Where there is water, there you can settle.' 

I used the word 'settle' in a rather wide sense. Ancient people of History were largely nomads or the pastoral tribe, meaning: They would not have a permanent abode. They would move from place to place to find fresh land for their livestock and agricultural practices. So, by 'settle' I meant people can stay in that particular area for a longer time, make homes, form societies, build relations, etc., over the period of time.

If you look back in to the Ancient civilizations of History, all known famous and the largest civilizations are built adjacent to a river body/bodies. For instance, let's see the top three ancient civilizations:

• Egyptian Civilization flourished on the banks of River Nile (Largest river of the World). 
• Mesopotamian Civilization flourished on the banks of Rivers- Tigress and Euphrates.
• Indus Valley Civilization flourished on the banks of the River - Indus. 

From here, lets get in to our topic of discussion: Indus Valley Civilization(IVC).

The Indus River originates from the K2 mountains. K2 mountains or the Mount Godwin-Austen is the highest peak of the Karakoram Ranges besides being the Highest mountain peak of Pakistan. What happens here is, the snow or the ice of these high mountains melt and collect at the foot of the mountains and over time flow out as a stream. This stream over time gains more quantity and flow as a river. This is how Indus originated. But apparently the snow/ice can melt in other parts of the Karakoram ranges as well. So, similar to Indus, few other rivers namely, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas originated from the foot of the Karakoram ranges. However, all these river flow parallel to each other and collectively fall in to the river Indus. Thus, giving the river Indus its conceivable magnificence. Usually all the 5 rivers are considered as the tributaries of River Indus.

Q. But what is the whole fuzz about having a river to lay foundation for a great civilization?

A. Presence of a river adds immensely to the resource pool. In the times when there were no storage tank facilities, rivers and other small water bodies acted as the sources of water. Water can further be used for agriculture, fishing, bathing and other variety of purposes besides drinking. Especially for nomads, rivers offer resources which are almost permanent and non-exhaustible. 

To give a rough estimate of how important the River(Indus) was, there were as many as 1,056 cities built as a part of IVC. All of which were on the banks of the river Indus and its tributaries. So, from this we have evident information as to why ancient people chose that place to build IVC. And from where they were able to get the resources to build such a large civilization out of this chunk of land.

Read further: IVC- Story