Thursday, April 23, 2020

1900-1700 BCE: The end of Indus valley civilization

2000-1700 BCE 

The great civilisation build one of the largest agrarian societies of those times. It also meant they depended heavily on waters of Indus and other rivers like Saraswati. They were also dependent on the two major rains - monsoons - to rain fed their cultivation. Due to a set of multiple probable reasons, the mighty civilization started declining around the year 2000 BCE.

The unraveling of the urban structure disintegrated the civilization though the population survived - broken down into smaller villages/settlements which were much less sophisticated. Driven away from the centre of the IVC areas due to likely famine and diminishing food surpluses, these post Urban inhabitants would go down as the unwritten footnote of a once thriving urban centre. Standardization across hundreds of miles was replaced by regional variations across the settlements.

While the IVC was declining, a new set of people from central Asia begins slowly settling in at its borders, with time moving inwards and inter mixing with late IVC people to begin the germination of a new population that will play an integral role in the Indian subcontinent - across culture, language, religion. These steppe pastoralists not only interacts with remaining set of IVC people, but also moves further east and south into India and meets the native peoples of the land. 

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