Hinduism Or The Indus Valley Civilisation - What Came First-

Do you think that India started getting civilized with the Indus Valley civilization? And the second question is, is it only as old as 3000 BC or do you think it was old? Like what does the evidence say about that? Yeah, so the word civilization, what does it mean? First of all, archaeologically, there are two terms, civilization and culture, right? Both terms we archaeologists use very quite often in our literature, in our work. Now, civilization is a concept where you find things that, you know, make people or suggest that the lifestyle of people was sort of organized or uniform over a large area. So over a large area, if there is some sort of uniformity, organization, skills, like organization in terms of administration, yeah, and also drainage, sanitation, town planning, all of that, certain parameters, if it sort of, you know, has, then it is a civilization. But within civilization, there are cultures. Now, what are cultures in archaeology? You know, we keep using this term culture very quite often. All the time I hear people talk about culture, but archaeologically, what do we mean about culture? For us, in simple terms, culture is nothing but learnt behavior. Something that we learn and over the period of time, given the landscape, the geomorphology, ecology, resources, etc., everything, the behavior that we learn and the tradition we develop over the period of time, that is culture. And for us, we focus on material culture, right? So within a civilization, there is culture also. So, of course, the civilization, it is a very, you know, like old world, if I look at the old world, the ancient world, there are contemporary civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt civilization. Harappan civilization or Indus Valley civilization is contemporary to them. It happened at the same time. It happened at the same time, right? But now looking at the history of the Indian subcontinent, because India is today a political boundary that, you know, we know, but back then that boundary didn't exist. So if you look at the subcontinent, the history, it goes very well into the prehistory. So we have stone tools that are dated to 1.5 million years. These are prehistoric stone tools. 1.5 million years. Okay. And you see Homo sapiens evolving and migrating out of Africa coming here. Which is roughly like when? 70,000-50,000 years ago. 70,000 years ago. Because 1.5 million years stone tool is attested to Homo erectus, our predecessor species, not us. Our species evolved. This is one of the theories. Our species evolved in Africa, migrated to India about 70,000-50,000 years ago. What's the story of India? Like if you can just draw out a picture of the subcontinent, you said 1.5 million years ago, we believe that there are stone tools. There were stone tools, which might mean that Homo erectus existed in India. They're dated. Okay. Not might. It's scientifically dated. It might mean Homo erectus or some, or maybe... Right now, we know because of the stone tool technology and doing a typological analysis, but yes, there's always another possibility. But that is, it correlates with the time period of Homo erectus, 1.5 million. And then we have Homo sapiens that is our species coming in the scene. I just want to add one small cool historical fact I learned recently. Someone, I think this was on Joe Rogan, where they showed orangutans using stone tools. Joe Rogan said that maybe they've reached their point of evolution where they've now discovered how to use tools. And they'll eventually evolve into some sort of more evolved being. Yeah, because evolution is ongoing. Even with those animals. Even with us. Even with us. We don't make tools anymore. So our hands and all are going to constantly change. We are not eating the, you know, our diet is not the same. We're eating cooked food, softer food. So our jaws are going to undergo changes. So physically also we are going to undergo change. So of course, change, evolution is an ongoing process. All men are going to become bald eventually. Balding is like the dominant gene. We never know what our next species is going to be. But we might not be able to see it or, you know, imagine it as of now. But painting the picture of India. So with the prehistoric evolution, we then have Homo Sapiens, that is our species, coming on board. And then their culture sort of evolves. The stone tool technology that sort of, you know, is evolved. And then the progression happens. And then Holocene begins. And Holocene is a time when the ice starts to melt. So that's the end of ice age, 10,000 BCE. Okay. So that's when the ice starts to melt. The ice age has ended. You have rivers, you know, lakes being formed. Fish becomes part of the diet. Was there a lot of ice in India? Like even, say, in Mumbai? Not a lot of it. But of course, the ice age, the cold weather did affect the environmental thing. So it could have been snowing in Mumbai. Not in Mumbai per se. But see, about 30, 40, you know, thousand years ago, if I look at it, the rivers that we see today, which basically have helped the cultures to evolve, were not existing. They started to exist only when the ice in the north starts to melt. You know, the ice starts, the glacier starts to melt because the temperatures become a little warmer. Wow. So that has happened. So this whole thing about Saraswati going underground and all, was there like a different... That is much later. So there was a whole different river system only back then. Yes, Saraswati was of course a very elaborate river system. We know that now. We have satellite imagery. And we know because of the tectonic shift, the Markund divide in the Himalayas, that the glacier that would feed the river was blocked. So that's the reason why the river became more of a seasonal river. That is whenever there is a high rainfall, there would be water. And that is the reason why slowly, steadily, in the southern part of the Saraswati river system, that is the Ghaggar-Hakra area, which is the Rajasthan, north-west Rajasthan, towards Sindh. That part starts to disappear. And the reason is because, see, if there is no water running in the river, rivers are usually deep, you know, and water carries a lot of silt. So if there is no water running, like with a force, and if there is only rainwater, it will only come with a force to a certain point, downstream to a certain point. It will not go on, you know, all across its... It won't go into the ocean. You need supporting tributaries to help the water in the channel. So what happens is the aridity, due to aridity also about in 2000 BCE, the part of Ghaggar-Hakra started to become very silty because of the sand dunes also. Where is this? This is north of Bikaner. Okay. If you look at the map of India, and if you zoom in to Shri Ganganagar district, you will see a green sort of patch, which resembles a river course, going towards Sindh, you know, the Pakistan border, and suddenly disappears. So that is the last part of the Saraswati system, which we call it the Ghaggar-Hakra. Okay. So when the siltation is happening, of course, the river is no longer very deep. It becomes shallow. So even if there is a rainfall, you know, every 10-20 years, massive flooding is happening, the water will not retain. It will flood over, you know, in the neighboring area. So that is one of the reasons why it happened. And also because Thar is in the desert area, the sand dunes starts to move. So because of the sand dunes, the river bed sort of gets silted and becomes more and more shallow with the period of time. So these are the reasons why Saraswati disappeared. And we know that about 2000 BCE, which is about 4000 years ago, this phenomenon started to happen. We have evidence for it. It started going underground. It started disappearing. Okay. It starts to disappear. Because there was no supply, water supply. There could have been other river systems like Saraswati also. The Satluj was there, Yamuna was there, Ganga was in existence. So also because of the tectonic movement, the Yamuna shifted more closer to Ganga. Okay. Around the same period of time. So if you see the changes that happened with Yamuna, slowly, slowly it has started going towards the Ganga, near Ganga. Now if you look at the map, there is Ganga, then Yamuna, and there is not much gap between them. Initially the gap was much more wide. So earthquakes happen all the time. There are tectonic shifts that happen all the time. Basically some earthquake has happened in the Himalayas somewhere. And because of that, a river gets entirely dried out or reduces over time. Yeah. And then civilizations have to shift inward, outward. Yeah. So not only that, the whole civilization was not affected by that. Okay. Only the Harappan sites on the Ghaggarhakra. Okay. Usually cities and towns come up near river systems because it's conducive to human life. Because if you see Indus and on the Yamuna and even the Gujarat, the Harappan sites thrived even after that. They started to disintegrate, you know, after 1900 till 1500 BCE. Whereas on Ghaggarhakra, the work that we have done personally, because that's my part of my doctoral research, we know that about 2000, you start seeing the sites, Harappan sites are, you know, being deserted. Okay. I'm going to draw out this picture again. Yeah. 1.5 million years ago, we find stone tools in India. In about between 50,000 BC and 70,000 BC in that period. Thousand years ago. Yeah. Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens are migrating into India. You'll have to paint the picture from 50,000 BC onwards. Yeah. This is an archaeologist perspective with evidence to back the story. So after that, as I said, about 10,000 BCE, the Holocene set in and then the rivers were formed and then fish become part of the diet. It led to rise of agriculture. So the people who were hunter-gatherers, they decided to, you know, opt for sedentary lifestyle. So agriculture started. The earliest evidence of agriculture comes from Mehrgarh, which is now in Pakistan, but it's part of the Indian subcontinent. The evidence is that about 7,500 BCE, the agriculture practices started. This evidence is older than any evidence we found in UP or Bihar or Northeast India. In UP also, there is a site called Aura Deva where there is evidence of, you know, about 5,000 BCE, the agriculture, but the Mehrgarh is the oldest and most ratified archaeological. It's like you have index sites which has, you can see the evolution, you know, from early farming all the way to Harappan. And this early farming is termed as early farming because the tools were more primitive. Also because they started now farming. They started including cereal and other grains into the diet besides hunting and, you know, the game besides the animals. They started including cereals and the things that they will produce, you know, they cultivate. So all that was included. So, of course, in the world view, the earliest evidence of agriculture comes from Central Asia, Turkey. It comes from there. There is no other site so far which precedes Turkey's evidence, which is very early, about 9,000 BCE. No other site precedes. So there is also a theory suggests that the farming practices, the practice migrated from, along with people perhaps, from that area to different parts of Europe and also the subcontinent. And 7,500 BCE is when Mehrgarh, you know, the evidence comes. But I also want to say this here that these are the evidence that we have right now. Tomorrow if we excavate a site which gives us much early evidence, it's much more possible. So this is what I'm talking is what we know as of now. Yeah. Okay. You also need to understand that with archaeology, there's also a lot of possibilities which are still buried. We don't know yet. So the agriculture, early farming life sort of starts and with the sedentarism, you have small, small settlements coming up. Again, one last thing I want to mention here because I know what a lot of audience members are thinking. We've even had Abhijit Chawra on the show and he had put out a theory saying that during the Ice Age, because they're a subtropical region, a lot of human beings settled in India because it was more conducive to human life and then possibly migrated outwards from India. See, that is, of course, there because you see where India is placed. Very strategically it is placed. It connects the East also and it connects the West. It's a connecting landscape, right? If you look at the migratory track and also you have to cross sort of Southeast Asia, South Asia to go towards connecting the Australian landscape continent also. So you just see India's place very strategically. And that's the reason why we are, you know, we thrived as traders. We still did. Even Indian ocean trade thrived, right? Because of the placing of the subcontinent. And from Africa, if you look at the map, you have Central Asia, then coming to India and then probably coming to the Southeast. So that is already been established on the basis of dates also. I think a lot of listeners who don't have an archaeologist perspective have a very romantic outlook on India. Thinking that no, we were the oldest civilization. You're one of the oldest civilization. No doubt. No doubt. I think there's also a lot of like I was going to say goodness, a lot of like anger towards Britishers for writing a textbooks in a certain way. So right now that's where the Internet is like they're pissed off that things like the Aryan invasion theory, things like the Indus Valley civilization are that out there. They're saying that history has started from there, but they fail to listen to the archaeologist perspective where you guys back it by evidence. So as I said with Anikaman, I feel like you guys have the biggest right in terms of you all have the right to speak the truth because this is your job. You all are trying to go about history from a place of science as well, not just theory and not just romance. Yeah, it's true. There's a lot of romanticism that happens, but that we can't do that in the field when we are excavating, you know, artifacts and excavating features. We can't romanticize history, then we can do it on the table. Like it feels very nice to hear those things, because even you're Indian, you love your country. Like it's not that you don't want to believe that we were the greatest civilization. We are one of the oldest and we are one of the biggest. Indus Valley civilization is the biggest civilization. You see the spread, you know, they were geniuses. Wait, I'll let you come back after you explain what happened after Holocene. Yeah, so after early farming. I'll shut up now. I'll just stay quiet and let Disha continue. After the early farming, we have sea rules being introduced. The society then undergoes change. So when you are no longer predominantly focused on surviving on hunting and now you can sit and you can produce and a part of it, of course, hunting. So when I say early farming, I don't mean that the hunting has disappeared. So you have early farming along with the hunting community going parallel also. In fact, within this you have Neolithic, which is, you know, early farming. So although Indus is an urban center, but then you have farming communities also continuously growing. So there is no block which is on top of the other. There are different, you know, the branches of tree that sort of going around in the subcontinent. So you have different cultures, you have civilization, but you have the farming community, you have indigenous cultures also, you have contemporary cultures also. So with the early farming, the perspective changed. Now you can sit and you have to do work in the field. You don't have to go into the wild and hunt and, you know, wonder if you won't find anything. What will you eat? Now you can produce. With that, there was of course, you know, the social structure must have also undergone change. What was happening in South India at this point? Southern India also we find evidence, but not that early so far. Is that digging happening in Southern India now? Yeah, digging is ongoing. Okay. So of course, there is parallel evidence to Indus Valley also. They found it? Because when I was growing up in school... They never teach you all this. They only teach you... It's like, you know, and I keep talking about this. And in my work also, I'm trying to sort of promote this, that people think that there was Harappans and the entire canvas of the subcontinent was blank. Yeah, because this is literally what's taught in history. But that's not true. It precedes the Aryan versus Dravidian theory, which is used even today in Tamil Nadu as a divide and rule policy by political parties. Yeah, I'm aware of it. They'll say that, no, you guys are Dravidians and you guys are from the Aryan race. That's why, one, you'll need to hate North India. And even amongst each other, there has to be rivalries. A friend of mine, Madan Gowri, who's a Tamil YouTuber, told me. I didn't know that this Aryan versus Dravidian thing is still there today. But it comes from British times where they were trying to apply divide and rule. That's why they told us that, okay, the Indus Valley civilization was populated... They were Aryans. Yeah. And you see, the downside to this is that in Southern India, people have started to want ancestry, forced ancestry to be Harappans. Because they think that... They want to prove desperately that Harappans migrated all the way to South. And that led to the culture there. And then they are the descendants, direct descendants to the Harappans. But it doesn't work like that. Because you see, when you're migrating, you are crossing a lot of... A huge chunk of landscape. And you don't have trains and flights then. You have to either cross by foot or by river. Or, you know, you have to use a primitive mode of transportation to do so. And in that, you will be meeting indigenous culture changing also. Change happens. We are... Our generation is a very good example of change. We are born somewhere. We might have studied somewhere. Working somewhere. We'll settle somewhere else. And our children will be born in a different place to what we were born. You know, where we were born. So, it's much evidence that, you know, where I was born, my child will have a different cultural perspective to, you know, what I had. They might not carry on a lot of Punjabi, you know, perception or Punjabiness in them. They might have a different thing because that's what culture demands. So, you change. We always change. So, once you have a sedentary life, once you are farming, your socio-economic and also your, you know, it becomes a little more complex. You might have... We see a lot of small, small settlements coming up. And these small, small settlements sort of gave rise to the civilization or urban phase or the urbanization of which the Harappans are very well known of. We see this in evidence that there's early Harappans which are farming, pre-Harappans also which are early farming. And then, you know, slowly, slowly towards mature Harappans, they become these, you know, very complex, unified, very, you know, they master the craft of trading. You know, the Harappans master the craft of trading with the Western civilizations. Right? So, we know that now that there is slowly evolution that has happened. And then, because Bronze Age civilization across the globe sort of disintegrating, started to sort of, you know, there was a decline into the civilization. You'll have to explain what Bronze Age civilization means. Okay. So, Bronze Age is when, see, there is stone tools. So, archaeologically our cultures are also termed after stone tools. Right? And then metal comes in. So, when the metal comes in, we start using that, defining that particular time period as per the metal. So, Chalcolithic is the time period where copper is introduced. Okay? And then the bronze is where copper alloy is made, where tin is added to copper to create bronze. So, Harappans mastered that metallurgy to add tin in the copper and create bronze artifacts. So, they, therefore, they are the Bronze Age civilization. And contemporary world, there were other Bronze Age civilization, of course. You know, other old world civilizations.