A civilisation, its names and its extent

Detail

What qualifies as a "civilisation"?

NCERT checklist — society must show:

1. Government and administration
2. Urbanism — town planning, water management, drainage
3. Crafts — raw-material sourcing/management + finished-goods production
4. Trade — internal and external
5. Writing
6. Cultural ideas — art, architecture, literature, customs
7. Productive agriculture — surplus large enough to feed cities, not just villages

Names of the civilisation

• Harappan — after Harappa, the first excavated site.
• Indus Valley — older usage; NCERT (revised) treats this as obsolete, since finds extend well beyond the Indus basin.
• Indus-Sarasvatī / Sindhu-Sarasvatī — reflects dual river-basin spread.
• Its rise is termed the First Urbanisation of India (Second Urbanisation = Gangetic cities, c. 600 BCE onward).

Geographic extent

• Artefacts — pottery, baked/unbaked bricks, seals, standardised weights, beads, copper-bronze objects — recovered from Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Sindh, Pakistani Punjab through J&K, Indian Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat.
• 2,000+ sites identified; majority cluster between the Indus and Sarasvatī (Ghaggar-Hakra) river basins — the basis for the "Sindhu-Sarasvatī" name.
• Dholavira, discovered 1968, was excavated over 13 field seasons (1989–2005), illustrating the long, incremental nature of Harappan site recovery generally [2].

The five major cities

City	Location today
Rakhigarhi	Haryana — largest known site
Mohenjo-daro	Sindh (Pakistan)
Harappa	Punjab (Pakistan) — first discovered
Dholavira	Gujarat (Rann of Kutch)
Ganweriwala	Cholistan desert (Pakistan)

• Beyond these five, sites are classed as regional centres, agricultural villages, ports, and manufacturing/craft centres.

Other notable sites

Site	Location	Note
Kalibangan	Rajasthan (on Ghaggar)
Lothal	Gujarat	port town
Chanhudaro	Sindh	craft/manufacturing town
Bhirrana, Banawali, Farmana	Haryana	Sarasvatī basin sites

Dholavira — extended profile

• UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 2021) — "Dholavira: a Harappan City," Khadir island, Rann of Kutch, Gujarat [2].
• Occupied c. 3000–1500 BCE; ranked the 6th largest among 1,000+ known Harappan sites at time of inscription [2].
• Comprises a fortified city and cemetery; notable for its water management system (reservoirs), gateways, and evidence of inter-regional trade with Mesopotamia and the Oman peninsula [2].

Note: UNESCO's dossier dates Dholavira's occupation to c. 3000–1500 BCE, a slightly wider/later span than the scaffold's overall civilisational bracket (c. 3500–1300 BCE); this is a site-specific occupation window, not a contradiction of the civilisation's overall era.

Prelims Hooks

• NCERT's civilisation checklist has 7 criteria — government, urbanism, crafts, trade, writing, cultural ideas, productive agriculture.
• "Indus Valley" is now considered an outdated/obsolete name in revised NCERT usage.
• Harappan civilisation's rise = First Urbanisation of India.
• 2,000+ Harappan sites known; most between Indus and Sarasvatī basins.
• Five major cities: Rakhigarhi, Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, Ganweriwala.
• Rakhigarhi (Haryana) = largest Harappan site overall.
• Dholavira = UNESCO World Heritage Site (2021); ranked 6th largest Harappan site; excavated over 13 seasons (1989–2005) after 1968 discovery.
• Lothal = Harappan port town (Gujarat).
• Chanhudaro = craft/manufacturing town, no citadel.
• Dholavira shows trade links with Mesopotamia and Oman peninsula.

Mains Points

• Naming debate ("Harappan" vs "Indus Valley" vs "Sindhu-Sarasvatī") reflects evolving archaeological understanding — site distribution data (2,000+ sites, Sarasvatī-basin concentration) has driven historiographic revision, a good example of how nomenclature in history follows evidence, not vice versa.
• The First Urbanisation framing lets an answer connect Harappan urban planning to the Second Urbanisation (Gangetic plains, post-600 BCE), useful for comparative GS-I questions on Indian urban history.
• Site hierarchy (5 major cities → regional centres → villages/ports/craft towns) demonstrates administrative/economic stratification without epigraphic decipherment — argument for indirect (archaeological) evidence of governance.
• Dholavira's UNESCO inscription and its trade evidence with Mesopotamia/Oman anchor the "external trade" criterion of the civilisation checklist in a concrete, examinable case.