The Harappan Civilization was one of the earliest and most extensive urban civilizations in the world. It emerged over 5,000 years ago along the Indus river in what is now Pakistan and northwest India. Also known as the Indus Valley Civilization, the Harappan civilization overlapped other, large early societies such as the Sumerians and Egyptians. Anthropologists even see signs of interactions between early Mesopotamian societies and the Harappans in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. But the question of why and how the civilization collapsed has been matter of debate for years.
Many theories claimed that some sudden event had caused the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. But recent research indicates that the collapse of the Harappans happened gradually — largely due to consistent and extended droughts. There is so much we don’t know about this huge, early civilization, but knowing why they faded from prominence may help us understand more about who they were as well.
The Harappan Civilization
Ancient civilizations are fascinating and mysterious. The more we unearth about this early cultures, the more questions we have. The Indus Valley Civilization was huge. At it’s height, the civilization probably boasted a population well in the millions. Their cities were complex and well laid out, with a strong infrastructure.
The major cities in the Harappan society, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, were laid out in a clear, grid pattern. The structures in these cities are particularly interesting, as they’re constructed with uniform bricks. The bricks were kiln-fired and share a level of uniformity that brings to mind public school buildings. These structures indicate strong planning, sophisticated governments, and skills shared over wide distances.
One thing all the major Harappan cities share is an advanced infrastructure for water management. The Indus valley region is heavily dependant on variable rainy seasons and monsoons. It makes sense that any successful urban society would need to manage the dry and rainy seasons. In the Harappan civilization, urban areas show signs of elaborate drainage systems beneath the city streets, home bathing areas, and covered sewers. They also contained advanced water storage in the form of reseviours, wells, and canals.
Unsurprisingly, this ancient, advanced civilization hosted a wealth of craft industries. Metalwork, beadmaking, ceramics, and impressive trading were able to thrive in the Indus Valley Civilization. Unfortunately, while we can unearth and understand some aspects of this impressive society remain a mystery to us. We haven’t yet deciphered the writing of the Harappans. With no understanding of the language that filled this busy streets, it’s hard to learn about the political, intellectual, and social life of the ancient people of the Indus Valley.
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A Fragmented Society
We do know that at some point about 3,500 year ago, the Indus Valley Civilization started to fragment. Even without insight into the language, archaeologists can study the trends by comparing older buildings in the Harappan civilization to newer ones, looking at societal debris, and noticing that the cities are contracting, not expanding.
For years, archaeologist have debated the “why” behind this decline. Was it social upheaval? Climate change? Shifting water sources? Now, recent studies indicate that extreme, prolonged river droughts are largely to blame.
Water is a necessity for a healthy society. A year or two of drought can devestate a civilization, but what if the drought lasted decades, or even centuries?
A History of Water
Modern researchers delved into the signs of drought they found around the Indus Valley Civilization. Rainfall trends, cave deposits, and lake sediments enabled them to build educated theories about how much water might have been flowing through the Indus River thousands of years ago.
Extreme floods and extreme droughts leave marks on the land. With this new, detailed look at the signs present in the Indus Valley, researchers were confident in identifying “the likelihood of severe and persistent droughts lasting from decades to centuries… between 4400 and 3400 years ago”.
One of these extreme droughts lasted for around 160 years and affected over 90 percent of the Indus Valley Civilization. These long, consistent droughts would have been devastating to the agriculture and trade of the region. It also would have been incredibly challenging for the huge, urban civilization’s water systems.
Worst of all for the Harappan civilization, these droughts don’t appear to be isolated events. The levels of water coming in from the seasonal monsoons, as well as the river levels were dropping together. The entire region suffered, and cities would certainly be hit hardest. Urban people are more dependant on systems working as they should. So many people living in close proximity can overwhelm water systems quickly, and when those systems are overwhelmed, society destablelizes.
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Where Did the Harappan People Go?
With the continual pressure of lasting drought weighing on the Harappan civilization, the society started to change. Archaeological records show that these Urban centers didn’t just collapse: they shifted slowly.
People began to leave the cities. They traveled to the Himalayan foothills, the Ganga plains, and the coastal regions. Long seasons of drying out led people to disperse slowly. They moved back to rural areas and seem to have planted drought-resistant foods like millet. The people of the Indus Valley didn’t fail: they adapted. They became smaller social groups with local governments, skilled at various trades, and determined to survive.
The cities they built declined, but the people adapted. If we spend time studying them, maybe we can learn something. When access to resources becomes limited, societies have to shift. What worked for the Indus Valley for 2000 years, didn’t continue to work in the face of extended drought.
Is our own attitude toward our resources working now, or do we need to adapt? With looming global water shortages, emulating the Harappans may be the best course of action for us in the future.
Featured Image by Gary Todd, via Flickr CC Public Domain