1 / 9

Early South Asia

Explore the Indus River Valley Civilization (ca. 2500–1900 BCE), its geography, planned cities like Mohenjo-Daro & Harappa, complex technology, occupations, mysterious writing, government, religion, trade links, and theories on its decline.

lanal
Download Presentation

Early South Asia

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Early South Asia Indus River Valley/Harappan Civilization (ca. 2500 – 1900 BCE)

  2. Geography and the Indus River I. Indian Subcontinent (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc.) A. Geographic Factors 1. Area of great plains (rivers run through them) 2. Monsoons (great periods of rain) affect the climate a. Northeast/Winter – dry mountain air b. Southwest/Summer – warm and wet *. Usually causes flooding which provides valuable nutrients to the soil

  3. II. Harappan/Indus Valley Civilization (ca. 2500 – 2000 B.C.E.) A. Many Planned Cities – Mohenjo- Daro and Harappaare the largest and best-known 1. “Fortress” structure in each city (on the north side) 2. Laid out in grid pattern 3. Housing complexes with courtyards 4. Sewer system B. Complex Technology – construction, sanitation, metalworking, weaving

  4. C. Occupations – farmers, artisans, merchants 1. There is currently very littleevidence of social classes or even social distinctions (as burials and housing are pretty much uniform). D. Writing 1. Pictograms– mostly found on “seal stones” 2. Not deciphered yet – therefore, we don’t know as much about them as we do about other ancient civilizations

  5. E. Institutions 1. Government a. structure unknown (no temples or palaces in cities) b. size unknown (was this a unified kingdom-- like Egypt-- or a collection of independent city-states, like Sumer?) c. Some kind of government must be present (due to planning of cities and presence of significant monumental architecture) 2. Religion – probably polytheistic a. Some possible links to modern Hinduism 3. Trade – Mesopotamian trade goods found in Harappan cities (and vice versa) *** How did this civilization came to an end? Flooding? Violence? Climatic change? Earthquake? Disease?

More Related