Surprising Discoveries From the Indus Civilization

National Geographic News ^ | April 29, 2013 | Traci Watson

[SunkenCiv]

Researchers examined the chemical composition of teeth from a Harappan cemetery used from roughly 2550 to 2030 B.C. The analysis showed that the city was a cosmopolitan melting pot. Many of the deceased had grown up outside Harappa...

Many of the outsiders, surprisingly, are men buried near women native to Harappa. The findings are preliminary, but they suggest men moved in with their brides, even though in South Asia women traditionally move to their husband's homes...

Bones from about 1900 to 1700 B.C. -- more than a millennium later than those examined by Kenoyer -- make it clear that at least some Harappan residents were subjected to savage violence. The skull of a child between four and six years old was cracked and crushed by blows from a club-like weapon. An adult woman was beaten so badly -- with extreme force, according to researchers -- that her skull caved in. A middle-aged man had a broken nose as well as damage to his forehead inflicted by a sharp-edged, heavy implement.

Of the 18 skulls examined from this time period, nearly half showed serious injuries from violence, researchers reported in a recent paper in the International Journal of Paleopathology. The rate of skull injuries tied to violence is the highest recorded in the prehistory of South Asia, the researchers say. It may be no coincidence that at the time of these burials the Indus civilization was beginning to disintegrate and parts of Harappa were being abandoned, for reasons that scholars are still debating.

[SunkenCiv]

The Indus civilization was first identified at Harappa, once a city of 80,000 people. [Photograph by James P. Blair, National Geographic]

[count-your-change]

Those folks weren’t much on house building but their sidewalks were excellent in the picture.

[BenLurkin]

Interesting article.

As a side note: Case Western Reserve University -- go Cleveland!

[InABunkerUnderSF]

So, if you have a rich city people from poorer regions will come in and try to take your stuff. (See the history of the 4th Century Roman Empire, or later, the 20th century Rio Grande civilization.)

One way to keep the invaders out is to hire mercenaries. One problem with mercenaries is that it's difficult to sustain their loyalty over a long period of time. A way to counter that is to marry off the mercenaries to local girls. The recruiting poster would be "Come to Harappa, join the army and take a wife!"

Of course there's no evidence of this.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Bones from about 1900 to 1700 B.C. -- more than a millennium later than those examined by Kenoyer -- make it clear that at least some Harappan residents were subjected to savage violence. The skull of a child between four and six years old was cracked and crushed by blows from a club-like weapon. An adult woman was beaten so badly -- with extreme force, according to researchers -- that her skull caved in. A middle-aged man had a broken nose as well as damage to his forehead inflicted by a sharp-edged, heavy implement.

Islam is older than we thought? ;)

[publius911]

It may be no coincidence that at the time of these burials the Indus civilization was beginning to disintegrate and parts of Harappa were being abandoned, for reasons that scholars are still debating.

The most likely culprits that come to mind were still eating grass, worms, and rocks for another 2700 years...
In this particular instance, it might not have been koranimals.

[dljordan]

Wait! I’ve got it! The government built “low income” housing in the neighborhood!

[BenLurkin]

Makes sense.

[RegulatorCountry]

The city was besieged, overrun and the city dwellers massacred. Happened often enough in recorded history. More than just plausible here.

The other information gleaned may or may not have anything to do with it. If somehow evidence indicates that it does, then your scenario comes right to the forefront.

City-states rising, becoming wealthy and powerful, sliding into decadence, then becoming unable or unwilling to withstand an invasion and falling seems to be predictably cyclical to the point of inevitability.

[Boogieman]

Let’s see, half the skulls show serious violence, including against at least one child, and the native women are married to foreign men. That sounds more like the city was conquered, with the native men and children killed, and the native women taken as prizes, than this interpretation they’ve come up with.

[RegulatorCountry]

That’s “sexist” so they’d rather pretend not to know, lol.

[SunkenCiv]

/bingo

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[fanfan]

Wait! I’ve got it! The government built “low income” housing in the neighborhood!

That would do it!

Thanks for the ping Civ.

[wildbill]

“...the Indus civilization was beginning to disintegrate and parts of Harappa were being abandoned, for reasons that scholars are still debating.”

Hey, if you have skull smashers roaming around the city, I don’t know about you, but I’m beating feet outathere.

Debate over.

[Jack Hammer]

“It may be no coincidence that at the time of these burials the Indus civilization was beginning to disintegrate...”

Exactly so - and it’s a lesson worth studying in the present-day United States.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks all. Indus Valley/script, Harappa/n/s, Aryan Invasions, etc:

• Surprising Discoveries From the Indus Civilization
• Is the Harappan civilisation 2000 years older?
• New Indo-European Language Discovered
• Huge Ancient Civilizationís Collapse Explained
• Rethinking the Thundering Hordes
• History's Most Overlooked Mysteries
• Bones kill myth of happy Harappa - Study shows gender discrimination
• Play was important -- even 4,000 years ago
• Early Cities Spurred Evolution of Immune System? [ "Amazing" DNA results show benefits ]
• Unearthed Aryan cities rewrite history
• Deciphering the Indus script: challenges and some headway
• A Millennium Conundrum [Indus Valley Script]
• British military insider: World War III is being staged; starting with Israel and Iran
• Indus Valley's Bronze Age civilisation 'had first sophisticated financial exchange system'
• Symbols akin to Indus valley culture found
• White Europeans evolved only ë5,500 years agoí
• Computers unlock more secrets of the mysterious Indus Valley script
• Indus Valley's secrets to remain buried: Insecurity forces archaeologists to abandon excavations
• Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read
• Indus Script Encodes Language, Reveals New Study Of Ancient Symbols
• Evidence suggests ancient people were skilled horsemen [3rd m BC Iran]
• Archaeologists made new discoveries at Moenjodaro
• Chandigarh was part of Harappan civilisation 5,000 years ago
• The Cradle That Is India
• Dancing Girl From Mohenjo-Daro
• Tales Cities Tell (Indus Valley)
• Distributing Water (Ancient Indus Valley)
• Interview [with Iravatham Mahadevan,] the Madras Indus scholar
• Can the monkey god save Rama?s underwater bridge?
• 'Indus Valley Civilization Was More Varied And Wider'
• German Indologist claims to have decoded Indus scripts
• Harappan Period Cemetery Unearthed In Uttar Pradesh
• Ancient Vishnu idol found in Russian town
• The Illegal Alien Crisis-Some Personal Observations
• Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory
• Indus cities dried up with monsoon
• Significance of Mayiladuthurai find -- Links between Harappa and Neolithic Tamil Nadu
• Asian-Americans Largest Percentage Of UC Freshman Class
• 9,000-Year-Old Dental Drill Is Found
• Ruins of Harrappan city found in Haryana
• 'Detectives' unearth secrets of the past (Dilmun seals inscribed with Indus Valley inscription)
• A Civilisation Parallel To Harappa? Experts Wonder
• Ahmad Hassan Dani (Indus Valley script)
• Excavations Reveal 7,000 Year-Old Harappan Sites
• Aryans In India: Old Debate Triggers New Debate
• Decoding DISCOVERY from the much-elusive Indus Valley script!
• 'Lost River' Could Rewrite History Books
• Scandinavian Ancestry -- Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan

[muawiyah]

It's always been traditional to trade the girls off to nearby tribes. The easy explanation is the death rate was so high at Harrapa that the only way they could maintain sufficient population to run the city and conduct the trade that was its mainstay was to attract serious minded and aggressive men from a wide area ~ and at the same time the women folks would be limited to a single local tribe willing to take the risks of the daughters suffering an early death.

Tribes further away would be busy taking in Harrapa's children ~ more or less like a large daycare operation.

So, who else did this for nearly 800 years? That place is well known as the Republic of Venice!

In Christopher Columbus time it was common for French nobles to farm their children out to Italians living in small villages away from the (for then) large cities and towns. A downside was if your real folks back home died in the palace, or in a local war, then you'd grow up as an Italian townsman.

That seems to be what happened to Chris!

[bigheadfred]

thanks for the ping and May the 4th be with you

[BenLurkin]

Bones from about 1900 to 1700 B.C. -- more than a millennium later than those examined by Kenoyer -- make it clear that at least some Harappan residents were subjected to savage violence