Did this ancient civilization avoid war for 2000 years?

Gizmodo ^ | 2014 | Annilee Newitz

[Arm_Bears]

If they were so friggin’ perfect, why did they die out?

[MrEdd]

An extension of the peaceful native tripe.
No place had war unless Europeans arrived.

[fantail 1952]

ping

[wbarmy]

2000 years is a pretty good run, if it really was that long.

Probably outside invaders got to them because they forgot how to defend themselves.

[RoosterRedux]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If they were humans, there was war.

[Ken522]

Every city was surrounded by a wall, but once inside, residents would find themselves walking past several more walled enclosures.

Sounds like a police presence wasn't very strong in the city - residents were on their own to protect their property.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[Raycpa]

What were walls for?

[Cronos]

From what it seems they weren't perfect: war enables innovation. The ancient indians didn't war, so no innovations -- it looks like the people who lived there, lived generations in the same house. Things never changed

Why they moved was, as explained in the article, due to the Bronze Age collapse climate change which also brought down the Hittites, myceneans and Middle Kingdom Egypt

The Saraswati river dried up, so less easy farming. People abandoned the cities and either:

1. Moved to southern India along the sea-coast (logical as they were a sea-faring people trading with Sumeria and Elam by sea)
2. Moved east to the Ganges-Jamuna valley system
3. Merged with the nomadic Aryans who were not affected by the climate change as they were nomadic herders

[Cronos]

Not in this case. Europeans are just another part of Eurasia - there was trading, warefare, diseaases, culture, religion and language spred from Taiwan to Ireland and places in between

The indus valley civilization didn't have any aggressor states nearby

Their successor states in the Punjab were quite warlike -- remember that they nearly defeated Alexander.

[PapaBear3625]

Sometimes archaeologists call the Harappan architectural style "nested" because they loved to build walls within walls. Every city was surrounded by a wall, but once inside, residents would find themselves walking past several more walled enclosures. We're not entirely sure why the Harappans designed their cities this way, but it's possible that these inner walls protected sacred areas or the estates of particularly high-status citizens.

It's called "defense in depth". If an enemy has gotten through the outer wall, defenders have someplace to retreat to, rather than being overrun.

[Cronos]

Looks like they didn't have any competition during their long run. The Aryans came in as nomads, but they were herders

what is interesting is that they didn't fight among themselves like their cousins, the Sumerians did. Perhaps it goes along with the lack of a ruling class

[Cronos]

Actually you can't conclude that - you can conclude that there may or may not have been war but based on the evidence available it seems that there was no war. War leaves tell-tale evidence of destruction, but there is none. It seems a very reasonable theory (unless proved wrong) that they didn't need to go to war.

As there were no invading outsiders it seems one reason, but also they didn't fight amongst themselves which is strange.

[RoosterRedux]

Fighting, competition, ambition, defense of one's own family/estate, argument, misunderstanding, physicality, testosterone/manliness, love (two or more men loving the same woman), jealousy.

Those are just a few of the things I toss out there to suggest that the absence of war (large or small) is impossible over a protracted period of time.

Like it or not, fighting is just human nature.

In fact, it is the threat of violence that helps maintain the peace.

[VanShuyten]

They had no war because they were large, organized, and surrounded by desert and mountains and disorganized nomads.

[Right Wing Assault]

I broke one of the FR rules and read to the end of the article. It seems the people probably moved out of the area due to crop failures (climate change) and disease.

"...there was a rather brutal climate change that began in the early 1000s BCE. Monsoons came irregularly, and the once-fertile valley became parched..."

Now we need to find out why the climate changed, since we can't find their cars, power plants, and oil refineries.

[oldasrocks]

Lack of war because they didn’t have a centralized guberment who in order to justify their existence, convinced them that some neighboring tribe wanted them all dead so they have to go to war.

[Cronos]

Fighting for what you state seems to have happened -- if you read the article archaeology has found cases of violent deaths

But no wars between cities or organized warfare at all.

[T-Bone Texan]

TL;DR high level analysis:

If you don't wage war, you'll get indoor plumbing.