Towards civilisation: the Early Harappan threshold

Detail

From stone to copper: why the plains mattered

• Copper tools arrive in the river plains. The Indus and Ghaggar-Sarasvatī basins have alluvial soil (fine soil dropped by rivers in flood — soft, deep and easy to dig). Copper tools cut and dug better than stone. More land could be farmed, and more food meant more people and more wealth.
• This is the Chalcolithic stage — the "copper-stone age", when people used copper tools but had not stopped using stone ones.
• Copper working was not simple. At Kunal, scientists studied ancient copper slags (the waste left behind after melting ore) to trace how smelting technology improved in the pre-Harappan period. [2]
• From 4000 BCE onwards, pottery was made on a large scale. Each region had its own style of pot shapes and painted designs. Early Chalcolithic sites cluster in three zones:
• Baluchistan (the hill country to the west),
• the Indus basin,
• the Ghaggar-Sarasvatī basin.

The early-dates claim (flag this carefully)

• NCERT's position: some radiocarbon dates (a lab method that dates old plant, bone or charcoal remains by measuring carbon decay) from sites in the dried Sarasvatī river belt suggest a Pre-Harappan phase beginning between 7000 and 5500 BCE.
• The two sites named are Bhirrana and Kunal.
• The "Sindhu–Sarasvatī" name for the civilisation is also the new NCERT's framing. In the exam, write it as the new NCERT's position, not as settled fact agreed by all archaeologists.
• Bhirrana sits on the left bank of the River Ghaggar, in Fatehabad district, Haryana. ASI has excavated there since 2003 and found a 4.5 m thick cultural sequence — three stacked stages: Hakra Ware, Early Harappan and Mature Harappan. [3]
• A thick, unbroken pile of layers like this is what "continuity" means on the ground: people lived in the same spot, and the culture changed step by step instead of being replaced.

• Hakra Ware is the pottery of the earliest of these layers; ASI lists it as a stage below Early Harappan. [3]

• Rakhigarhi (Haryana) shows the same story at a huge scale: about 550 hectares, the largest known settlement of the Indus–Saraswati Civilisation, with continuous living from Early Harappan to Mature Harappan, plus planned settlement, drains, craft-production centres, trade links and burial grounds. [4]

Early Harappan continuity: crafts that never stopped

Regional styles did not vanish. They slowly became the standard features seen everywhere by c. 2500 BCE. Four craft lines run straight through:

• Pottery traditions — local shapes and paintings merge into a shared Harappan look.
• Semi-precious stone beads — beads made from attractive stones like carnelian and agate (not gems, but valued).
• Shell bangles — bangles cut from thick sea-shells.
• Terracotta objects — things made of baked clay (figurines, toys, tools).
• Copper working — smelting and shaping copper.

Where early bead-making is found:

• Harappa (Punjab, Pakistan)
• Kunal (Haryana)
• Datrana (Gujarat)

This spread — Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat — shows the craft was already regional, not one lucky village.

Forerunners of the script

• Graffiti on pottery is found in large amounts at Early Harappan sites. Graffiti here means signs scratched onto a pot, usually after firing.
• A few seals also appear, carrying geometric designs and simple animal motifs — not yet writing, but the same habit of marking with signs.
• The three sites named: Harappa, Rehman Dheri and Kunal.
• These lead on to the inscribed seals and the Sindhu lipi (the Indus script) of the mature civilisation.
• Exam angle: the script did not appear suddenly at 2600 BCE. Its raw material — signs, seals, marks on pots — was already in use centuries earlier.

Agriculture and water management

The Kalibangan ploughed field (Early Harappan):

• Two sets of furrows (the grooves a plough cuts in the soil) crossing at right angles.
• This is double cropping — two crops in one field at the same time. It matches today's rabi–kharif pattern. NCERT calls it "a tradition nearly 5,000 years old".
• The field surface was found preserved under buildings of the Mature Harappan period — so it is stratigraphically earlier (buried under later construction, therefore older). [5]
• No plough, ploughshare or coulter was actually found. The well-preserved furrows themselves are the evidence that a plough was used. [5]
• The crossed pattern is almost identical to ploughing still done near Kalibangan today — the wide furrows in one direction for taller crops (such as pulses/peas), the narrow furrows at right angles for oilseed plants (such as mustard). [5]
• Kalibangan (Rajasthan, on the dried Ghaggar) was dug by ASI for nine field seasons, 1960–1969. [5]

Water: two different answers to the same problem.

• The Sumerians in Mesopotamia dug canals to carry river water to fields.
• Early Harappans in the Baluchistan foothills built gabarbands instead — check dams built across small streams. A check dam is a low wall that stops the water and the silt behind it, so the soil stays wet and rich enough to farm.
• Why the difference? Baluchistan has hill streams, not big steady rivers. The technology fits the land.

Village to town: how the threshold was crossed

• Better technology plus economic integration produced the urban centres of the Harappan civilisation by 2600 BCE.
• The mechanics, step by step:
• Villages produced a surplus (more food and goods than they themselves needed).
• Villages began exchanging goods with each other.
• Networks of communication grew along these exchange routes.

• Some villages sitting on these networks grew larger — into towns.

• This note hands over here to the harappan-civilisation topic. Everything after 2600 BCE belongs there.

Prelims Hooks

• Large-scale pottery making with diverse regional styles begins from 4000 BCE in Baluchistan and the Indus and Ghaggar-Sarasvatī basins.
• NCERT flags a Pre-Harappan phase of 7000–5500 BCE at Bhirrana and Kunal, in the dried Sarasvatī belt, based on radiocarbon dates.
• Bhirrana is on the left bank of the Ghaggar, in Fatehabad district, Haryana; ASI excavation since 2003; 4.5 m sequence of Hakra Ware → Early Harappan → Mature Harappan. [3]
• Rakhigarhi: about 550 hectares, the largest known settlement of the Indus–Saraswati Civilisation, Early to Mature Harappan. [4]
• Early bead production sites: Harappa, Kunal (Haryana), Datrana (Gujarat).
• Graffiti on pottery and a few seals with geometric and simple animal motifs at Harappa, Rehman Dheri and Kunal — forerunners of the Sindhu lipi.
• The ploughed field at Kalibangan is Early Harappan; furrows cross at right angles = double cropping (rabi–kharif).
• No plough or ploughshare was recovered at Kalibangan — only the furrows. [5]
• Kalibangan was excavated by ASI over nine field seasons, 1960–1969. [5]
• Gabarbands = check dams across small streams in the Baluchistan foothills; contrast with Sumerian canals.
• Regional Early Harappan styles become standard features by c. 2500 BCE; urban centres appear by 2600 BCE.

Mains Points

• Continuity, not sudden birth. The Mature Harappan city did not appear out of nowhere. Pottery, beads, shell bangles, terracotta, copper working and sign-marking all exist in the Early Harappan phase; the 4.5 m Bhirrana sequence and the Early-to-Mature layers at Rakhigarhi show the same people carrying on in the same place. [3][4] Use this to argue that Harappan urbanism was indigenous and gradual.
• Dating debate — handle with care. The 7000–5500 BCE Pre-Harappan dates and the "Sindhu–Sarasvatī" label are the new NCERT's positions. A good GS-I answer states them as such, names the evidence (radiocarbon dates from Bhirrana and Kunal), and notes that the wider chronology of early Indian farming is still debated.
• Technology is shaped by geography. Sumerians built canals on a flat flood plain; Early Harappans in the Baluchistan hills built gabarbands across streams. Same goal — controlled water — different answers. This is a ready example for "environment and early technology" questions.
• Agricultural surplus → urbanism. The Kalibangan crossed furrows prove double cropping at the Early Harappan stage. More harvests per year created the surplus that let some people stop farming and become potters, bead-makers and traders. Exchange between villages built communication networks, and settlements on those networks grew into the towns of 2600 BCE.
• Living tradition. The Kalibangan furrow pattern matches ploughing done near the site today — wide furrows for tall crops, narrow cross-furrows for oilseeds. [5] Useful for "continuity of Indian civilisation" and culture-heritage answers.