to the east on the Narmada and Tāpi rivers. To further their
trade with other cultures, the Harappans established towns
far from their river valley: Shortughai in the Hindu Kush
mountains to the north and Mundikak, Shahr-e Sokhte, and
Bampūr far to the west. Shortughai was in a place to take ad-
vantage of trade in lapis lazuli, and the far western settlements
may have been for trade with Mesopotamia. Th e oldest settle-
ment appears to be Mehrgarh near the Bolan Pass west of the
Indus River, which was fi rst settled in about 6000 b.c.e.
By about 1500 b.c.e. the Harappan civilization had col-
lapsed, probably because of a combination of natural disasters
and invasion by nomadic Aryan groups from central Asia.
Th ese groups became the Vedic peoples, and over hundreds
of years they migrated through the Indus River valley and
southeastward through northern India. Th ey did not imme-
diately settle down into permanent homes but migrated with
their cattle. In about 1000 b.c.e. they began to adopt agricul-
ture, and during the 800s b.c.e. small Vedic kingdoms arose,
mostly along the Ganges and Yamuna rivers that ran south-
eastward across northern India. Much of the Ganges fl owed
through plains that were good for both growing crops and
herding cattle.
While the Vedic peoples were slowly expanding south-
ward, they encountered other peoples, oft en called Dravid-
ians by archaeologists. Many of these people belonged to
Stone Age cultures, living in forests as hunter-gatherers. Th ey
resisted eff orts to settle their territories and continued their
ways of life all through the ancient era. Others became farm-
ers. Like the Harappans, they tended to settle along rivers,
but in central and southern India rains were so frequent that
communities could settle in wet, open lands away from riv-
ers and reasonably hope to receive enough rain to water their
crops. When India formed kingdoms, governments tried to
take advantage of rains by building dams to create reservoirs,
particularly in mountainous highlands. Public works such as
dams and irrigation canals allowed people to spread their vil-
lages into areas previously unsuited for farming.
Although the Harappans are still mysterious to modern
archaeologists, societies in China during the same era are even
more p er ple x i ng. I n muc h of w h at i s now C h i na , p e ople d id not
create settlements until modern times, and many in the north
still remain nomads, pitching their tents in diff erent places ev-
ery day. In about 6500 b.c.e. people began farming. By about
5000 b.c.e. there was a fairly cohesive culture farming millet
along the lower reaches of the Yellow River, also known as the
Huang River. Around the Yellow River and its tributaries was
a belt of loess soil, silt blown into layers over many years, and
the Yangshao culture of about 5000 b.c.e. spread villages away
from rivers into regions where the soil allowed for easy dig-
ging. Rice farming was introduced from the south, and the
Longshan culture of about 3200 b.c.e. developed to organize
people to take advantage of rice’s superior yields and nutri-
tion, because rain was less frequent in the Yellow River area
and irrigation requiring community cooperation was needed
to provide rice with the moisture it needed.South of the Yellow River was the Yangtze River, where
farmers settled along the riverside to grow mostly rice. From
about 4500 b.c.e. on the region around the mouth of the
Yangtze and a region upstream around the lake Dongting Hu
became heavily populated by farmers. Th e Shang Dynasty (ca.
1500–ca. 1045 b.c.e.) tried to absorb the people of the Yang-
tze, but it took until the Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1045–256 b.c.e.)
for China to conquer the Yangtze settlements, and thereaft er
the Yangtze farmlands became vital to feeding the empire.
Th e Zhou, Qin (221–207 b.c.e.), and Han (202 b.c.e.–220
c.e.) dynasties each made the establishment of settlements
part of government policy. Th ey made special eff orts to set-
tle peasants from central China in the north near the Great
Wall to act as deterrents to nomadic raiders, and during the
Han Dynasty to help make the Silk Road secure. To absorb
conquered lands into the empire, Chinese governments oft en
moved large groups of peasants south or west, going as far
south as North Vietnam.
For almost all of the ancient era the majority of people
in Korea and Japan settled near ocean shores. Th ose people
who moved inland tended to settle beside lakes or streams.
In Japan the mountains were sparsely populated. In Korea
invasions and wars infl uenced some people to move into
highlands, where travel was diffi cult and water sometimes
scarce but where the rough territory helped them defend
themselves. During the Yayoi Period (300 b.c.e.–300 c.e.) of
Japan people oft en settled near marshes or swamps because
they would scatter rice seed in the marshes or swamps and
later harvest the new rice. Th is unsophisticated approach to
growing rice was suffi cient for Japan’s population of about
two million people.
Extensive rain forests grew in southeastern Asia. Th at
these lands were populated is known from the records of
Chinese and Indian explorers, but little is known of their
settlement patterns. Th e Mekong River attracted many settle-
ments, probably at fi rst because of good fi shing and later be-
cause rice could be cultivated along it. By about 100 b.c.e. the
Mekong Delta in modern southeastern Vietnam was heavily
populated, mostly by farmers.EUROPE
BY JUDITH A. RASSON
Th e Paleolithic cultural period dates to the geological Pleisto-
cene (the ice ages). Although the climate all over Europe was
aff ected, there were many large ice-free areas. People lived in
small groups that moved around throughout the year to hunt
and gather wild animals and plants, resulting in a settlement
pattern made up of campsites used by diff erent groups at dif-
ferent times. A good campsite needed not only a safe place to
set up tents or other shelters but also access to water and food.
Some campsites were near sources of stone for tools. People
returned to favorable locations year aft er year, such as Dolní
Věstonice in the modern-day Czech Republic, which was on
a nonglaciated route between eastern and western Europe.968 settlement patterns: Europe0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i968 968 10/10/07 2:30:36 PM