What happened c. 1500 BCE?

Around 1900 BC, signs of a gradual decline begin to emerge. People started to leave the cities. Those who remained were poorly nourished. By around 1800 BC, most of the cities were abandoned.In the aftermath of the Indus civilization's collapse, regional cultures emerged, to varying degrees showing the influence of the Indus civilization. In the formerly great city of Harappa, burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called the Cemetery H culture. At the same time, the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture expands from Rajasthan into the Gangetic Plain.It is in this context of the aftermath of a civilization's collapse that the Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis into northern India is discussed. In the early twentieth century, this migration was forwarded in the guise of an "Aryan invasion", and when the civilization was discovered in the 1920s, its collapse at precisely the time of the conjectured invasion was seen as an independent confirmation.In the words of the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, the Indo-Aryan war god Indra "stands accused" of the destruction. It is however far from certain whether the collapse of the IVC is a result of an Indo-Aryan migration, if there was one. It seems rather likely that, to the contrary, the hypothized Indo-Aryan migration was as a result of the collapse, comparable with the decline of the Roman Empire and the incursions of relatively primitive peoples during the Migrations Period.A third possibilty is that IVC colapsed primarily due to natural reasons (climate change, tectonic activity along the subduction zone along the Indo-Asian plate boundary) and that there was no Indo-Aryan invasion that took place. Swastika, a symbol associated with the Indo-Aryans by easrly historians, has been found in large numbers over several IVC sites.Similarly, several Shiv Lingum type structures have been found at several IVC sites. Both the Swastika and Shiv Lingum have been symbols closely related to the Hindu religion (even to the present day), indicating continuity of the IVC civilization rather than a complete collapse or destruction. The discovery of Swastikas have put to question the theory of an Aryan invasion of Indian subcontinent.A possible natural reason of the IVC's decline is connected with climate change.In 2600 BC, the Indus Valley was verdant, forested, and teeming with wildlife. It was wetter, too; floods were a problem and appear, on more than one occasion, to have overwhelmed certain settlements. As a result, Indus civilization people supplemented their diet with hunting. By 1800 BC, the climate is known to have changed. It became significantly cooler and drier.The crucial factor may have been the disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar-Hakra river system. A tectonic event may have diverted the system's sources toward the Ganges Plain, though there is some uncertainty about the date of this event. Such a statement may seem dubious if one does not realize that the transition between the Indus and Gangetic plains amounts to a matter of inches.The region in which the river's waters formerly arose is known to be geologically active, and there is evidence of major tectonic events at the time the Indus civilization collapsed. Although this particular factor is speculative, and not generally accepted, the decline of the IVC, as with any other civilization, will have been due to a combination of a variety of reasons.

INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION'S ANCIENT WRITINGS

In 2004 Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat (University of Illinois) and Michael Witzel (Harvard University) stunned the world of ancient Indus scholarship with the claim that the Indus sign system was not writing. They based their reasoning on computer analysis of Indus sign properties apparently not in common with other ancient written languages.
A target of their critique was the work of Dr. Asko Parpola who - like a number of other ancient Indus "decipherments" in the past century - had concluded that the Indus sign system represented an ancient Dravidian language. Like the Jesuit priest Father Heras in the 1930s, he proposed (to the layman, rather convincingly) that the fish sign represented the word min, (pronounced meen) which designates both fish and star in most Dravidian languages. Dr. Parpola and his team's further "decipherments" based on the fish sign and old Tamil words for heavenly bodies seem to fit (to the layman, again) very nicely with words designating Venus, Saturn, the Pleaides, and other astral entities. The stars and heavenly signs were important to ancient peoples everywhere, especially ones who built economies on maritime navigation. Although it is not possible to test his interpretations, it would not be surprising if some of them are close to the truth. Still, important scholars like Gregory Possehl (University of Pennsylvania) do not accept Dr. Parpola's interpretations, while others like Indian and early Tamil expert Iravatham Mahadevan add to them. Something as clear as a definitive Rosetta stone for the ancient Indus language still eludes archaeologists. Nonetheless the discovery in the spring of 2006 of Indus signs on a hand-axe in the southern India state of Tamil Nadu could increase the probability that the ancient Indus signs are related to the Dravidian language family. Until this apparent discovery, there was no clear physical evidence for such a link.
Dr. Parpola's work also stems from a deep knowledge of Bronze Age ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Some of the largest world trade ever must have taken place between Indus and Mesopotamian merchants during the heyday of these urban civilizations around 2350 BCE. Then there are the further discoveries in recent years of adjacent cultures between the Euphrates and Indus, like the Bactria Margiana Architectural Complex (BMAC) civilization of central Asia and Afghanistan and the city of Jiroft in southwestern Iran at the edge of the Indus plateau. Ancient human history from Turkey to India was international long before the global economy.
All these entitites traded with each other. The birth of signs or writing on stamp seals to designate ownership of goods is intertwined with the rise of early cities. To assume that other cultures with whom the Indus people traded were writing on stamp seals but the ancient Indus people were not seems slightly improbable. The objective of the seals and the symbols on them was to facilitate efficient communication across cultures.
Dr. Parpola's work is also rigorously informed by the early Vedic Hindu tradition that followed the ancient Indus civilization after around 1700-1500 BCE. Some of his interpretations, like the link between the gods Rudra and Shiva, continue the linkages to later Hindu traditions.

Working platforms

The picture above shows the Ancient indians working platforms. they were used for husking grains.

The granary

The picture above is a picture of the Ancient indian granary. The granary is used to store grains like rice, wheat and oat

the public well

The picture above is a picture of the ancient indian public well. the public well was used to wash and dye clothings

recap questions 2

How do historians make sure that their sources are reliable

They go through the 3c's Credibility, Consistency and corroboration

recap questions 2

what are primary and secondary sources?
Primary sources is a scource of information that was created at roughly the time it belongs to. it usually has direct knowlefge of the events being happening.. examples of primary sources, written, oral, pictoral and artifactual evidences.
Secondary sources is evidence provided by people who have not veen involved in the event in the past but have heard about it from other people and record the information in textbooks,encylcopedia, articles in newspapers and magazines