assemblages appear in the lowlands of the Indus Valley, such as the “Kot Dijian” wares
of Sind or “Hakra” wares of the Punjab (Mughal 1970 , 1988 ).
The early third millennium of the greater Indus Valley is, in many ways, simply a
continuation of the cultural patterns seen in the fourth millennium BC. These include
small settlements (average: ~ 5 ha), fairly limited evidence of long-distance trade and
exchange, and highly-regionalized styles of pottery: e.g., Amri/Nal (southern
Baluchistan/Makran to northern Gujarat); Damb Sadaat (northern Baluchistan); Kot
Dijian (northern Sindh to Punjab); and Sothi-Siswal (Indian Punjab to western Uttar
Pradesh) (Possehl 2002 b: 40 – 46 ). These so-called “Early Harappan” cultures, although
mostly distinct from one another, are found over much broader areas than their late
Chalcolithic predecessors, and show more cultural and economic interaction between
them (Mughal 1988 ). It was out of this intensification of regional and inter-regional
exchange that the Harappan Civilization was born.
The sudden appearance of the Harappan Civilization c. 2600 – 2500 BC, signified by
a shared assemblage of artifacts (e.g., Indus ceramics, stone weights, writing and seals,
terracotta cakes) and architectural styles (e.g., use of baked brick, well-planned streets,
emphasis on hydraulic engineering) over a vast area (from Baluchistan to the Punjab to
Gujarat), is still not well understood. In a now famous paper, Possehl ( 1990 ) argued
that trade with the west may have provided the catalyst for the urban civilization that
arose from the ashes of Early Harappan settlements, the majority of which were
abandoned (often sealed by either violent or ritualized conflagrations) during this
transition (Possehl 2002 b: 56 ). However, recent excavations at sites like Harappa have
shown how many of the signifiers of Harappan Civilization (e.g., seals and proto-
writing, proto-urbanism, standard weights) actually appeared in the Kot Dijian phase
(c. 2800 – 2600 BC(Meadow and Kenoyer 2008 ). Thus, the relatively rapid rise of urban
civilization in the greater Indus Valley can only be explained as a product of both local
socio-cultural trajectories and intensification caused by long-distance socio-economic
interactions.
Although sites of the Harappan Civilization share many traits in common, includ-
ing certain pottery types, square stamp seals, and various architectural elements, it
is important to remember that this archaeological “Culture” (with a capital “C”) is
also highly regionalized. Possehl ( 1982 ) called these regional variants “domains,” and
he delineates at least six. While the Harappan domains likely engaged in intensive
trade and exchange activities, they were not a homogenous group of people (“the
Harappans”) as many introductory textbooks would like to suggest. We know this
because of the contemporaneous presence of two or more domains’ material cultures
found in the same areas – for example, Late Kot Dijian ceramics in the Sindhi Domain,
or Sindhi material in the Sorath Domain (see Possehl and Raval 1989 ). Indeed,
numerous fortified and unfortified Sindhi Harappan sites have now been identified
within the Sorath Domain (from Dholavira to Lothal), suggesting a level of intra-
regional colonization not previously recognized within the Harappan Civilization.
At its zenith c. 2000 BC, the Harappan Civilization extended from Pakistani Makran
to the western Ganges, from Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan to the Gulf of
Khambhat in southeastern Gujarat – an area of approximately one million square
kilometers (Possehl 2002 b: 6 ). It is possible that this extraordinary growth and
expansionism ultimately led to the collapse of the Harappan Civilization c. 1900 BC.
The succeeding “Late Harappan” or “post-Urban” phase is not well understood (see
–– Christopher P. Thornton ––