Excavations At The Harappan Site Of Allahdino

The pottery of Mohenjo-dara, one of the two major urban centers of the Indus Valley civilization (2500-2000 B.C.) is described and documented. The authors survey Harappan ceramic technology and style, and develop an important and unique approach to vessel form analysis and terminology. Included is Leslie Alcock's account of the pottery from the 1950 excavations by Sir Mortimer Wheeler. University Museum Monograph, 53

The site of Harappa was one of the major urban centres of the ancient Indus civilization. Recent excavations have revealed traces of an early settlement, a transitional development, and several phases of full urban and post-urban occupation. The results presented here coupled with the general observations of past excavations make possible a better understanding of the city of Harappa in the broader context of Indus Culture; how and why the settlement grew and expanded; and how the city was organised. The eleven chapters in this volume offers a major contribution to the archaeology of complex societies.

The beaches of the Indian Ocean stretch in a golden arc from the Atlantic to the Pacific, delimiting the entire southern boundary of the old world. On the lands adjoining this ocean and its inlets, almost every variety of human adaptation is or has been represented, as have the interactions between them. Societies of fisherman and pirates, hunters and gatherers, herdsmen and agrarian farmers, states and urban civilizations based on farming or trade, have all flourished at one time or another. Yet studies of the systems of the Indian Ocean before the spread of Islam remain in their infancy and until now the record on early Indian Ocean civilizations has been fragmented. The Indian Ocean in Antiquity brings together an international group of leading scholars to present, for the first time, a comprehensive view of the current state of research on the early populations of the area. After an introductory chapter, the twenty-six papers are grouped into four sections: The Environment and Natural Resources; The Early Civilizations; The Classical Period and Between Africa and China. They comprise the most far-reaching look at this vast region in pre-modern times that has ever been available. This pioneering volume makes an important contribution to the understanding of a region of great significance in world history, both past and future.Topics include: sea levels and other factors affecting coastal settlement; contracts between Mesopotamia and the Indus; Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian maritime activity; Roman interests in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean; the archeological evidence for early trade between South and Southeast Asia; the early settlement of Madagascar; the ethnographic evidence for long-distance contacts between Oceania and East Africa and recent discoveries of Christian and Hindu remains in Quanzhou.

India's history and culture is ancient and dynamic, spanning back to the beginning of human civilization. Beginning with a mysterious culture along the Indus River and in farming communities in the southern lands of India, the history of India is punctuated by constant integration with migrating peoples and with the diverse cultures that surround the country. Placed in the center of Asia, history in India is a crossroads of cultures from China to Europe, as well as the most significant Asian connection with the cultures of Africa. The Historical Dictionary of Ancient India provides information ranging from the earliest Paleolithic cultures in the Indian subcontinent to 1000 CE. The ancient history of this country is related in this book through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on rulers, bureaucrats, ancient societies, religion, gods, and philosophical ideas.

A brief introduction to the history, archaeology, art, language, and culture of the Indus Valley civilization, written by the leading North American Indus archaeologist.

This volume, a compilation of original papers written to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer to the archaeology of South Asia over the past forty years, highlights recent developments in the archaeological research of ancient South Asia, with specific reference to the Indus Civilization.

There are few questions more central to understanding the prehistory of our species than those regarding the institutionalization of social inequality. Social inequality is manifested in unequal access to goods, information, decision-making, and power. This structure is essential to higher orders of social organization and basic to the operation of more complex societies. An understanding of the transformation from relatively egalitarian societies to a hierarchical organization and socioeconomic stratification is fundamental to our knowledge about the human condition. In a follow-up to their 1995 book Foundations of Social Inequality, the Editors of this volume have compiled a new and comprehensive group of studies concerning these central questions. When and where does hierarchy appear in human society, and how does it operate? With numerous case studies from the Old and New World, spanning foraging societies to agricultural groups, and complex states, Pathways to Power provides key historical insights into current social and cultural questions.