Indus Valley Civilization (IVC / Harappan)

The Indus Valley Civilization, including its Mature, Late, and post-urban phases, appears across a range of articles in the IJA corpus, addressed through site excavations, settlement-pattern surveys, archaeobotany, faunal analysis, and typological comparisons. The journal’s coverage concentrates especially on the peripheral zones of the Harappan world - the Yamuna-Gangetic transition, the Thar Desert margin, the Kachchh, and the Haryana heartland - and on the question of how Harappan material culture interfaces with OCP and PGW horizons.

Key Sites

• Khanak (District Bhiwani, Haryana) - Indus site in the Tosham Hills, excavated by R.N. Singh; extends the known eastern limit of Harappan settlement into the Aravalli piedmont
• Sampolia Khera / Masudpur I (Haryana) - faunal remains provide data on animal exploitation strategies in a Harappan hinterland context; excavated by Cambridge–BHU collaborative project
• Masudpur (District Hisar, Haryana) - multi-season survey and excavation (MAHSA project, Cambridge–BHU) investigating settlement hierarchy in the Harappan hinterland
• Rakhigarhi (District Hissar, Haryana) - described as a Harappan metropolis; Vol 4, No. 4 maps Mesolithic to PGW settlement in its 10 km catchment
• Kanmer (Kachchh, Gujarat) - unique drill-bit assemblage studied; Harappan industrial site
• Hanumangarh district (Rajasthan / Thar margin) - desert-edge settlement survey showing Harappan expansion and contraction
• Alamgirpur (District Meerut, U.P.) - the easternmost confirmed Harappan site; ceramic study (Vol 8, No. 2) proposes Mature Harappan dates 2600–2200 B.C.; sequence runs through Late Harappan and PGW to Early Historical
• Ganeshwar (Sikar, Rajasthan) - ceramic assemblage reported in Vol 4, No. 1; pre-Harappan / Chalcolithic site with copper artefacts anticipating the copper hoard tradition

Key Findings

1. Eastern frontier at Alamgirpur: The ceramic study (Vol 8, No. 2) proposes 2600–2200 B.C. for the Mature Harappan occupation, with the cultural sequence continuing through Late Harappan into PGW, making Alamgirpur the crucial bridge site between the Harappan world and the Gangetic cultural sequence.
2. Archaeobotany at Alamgirpur (Vol 6, No. 2): Grain pulses played an important dietary and agricultural role in both the Mature Harappan and PGW phases; the study reassesses agricultural continuity across the transition.
3. Millet introduction (Vol 1, No. 4): Pokhariya’s study of peripheral-zone Harappan sites documents the adoption of millets as a strategy for expanding into arid and sub-tropical zones.
4. Desert-margin settlement (Vol 3, No. 3): Hanumangarh survey shows Harappan sites concentrated along now-defunct water channels, confirming the monsoon-driven settlement pattern and its collapse during Late Harappan de-urbanisation.
5. Rakhigarhi catchment (Vol 4, No. 4): Systematic survey reveals Mesolithic, Harappan, and PGW sites in the 10 km hinterland of the metropolis, providing a picture of long-term landscape occupation.
6. Erlitou comparison (Vol 5, No. 1): A comparative study of Harappa and the Chinese Bronze Age city Erlitou highlights contrasting economic and political models: Harappa shows a more decentralised exchange economy than Erlitou’s state-controlled Bronze Age urbanism.
7. Gandharan connections: Articles on Gandharan art (Vol 6, No. 1) trace how Harappan/Indus artistic motifs persist into and interact with the Gandharan tradition of northwestern India.

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