Hydroclimate change in the Garhwal Himalaya, India at 4200 yr BP coincident with the contraction of the Indus civilization

High-resolution analysis of a 3.80 m sediment core recovered from Deoria Tal, a mid-elevation lake located at 2393 m a.s.l. in the Garhwal Himalaya, documents long-term and abrupt hydroclimate fluctuations in northern India during the mid- to late Holocene. The sediment chronology, based on ten 14C dates, indicates the core spans 5200 years. Non-destructive, radiological imaging approaches (X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray imaging, and CT scans) were used to assess the response of the lake system to changing hydroclimatic conditions. Variations in elemental concentrations and sediment density evidenced notable hydroclimate change episodes centered at 4850, 4200, and 3100 cal yr BP. Elevated detrital input, greater sediment density, decreased lake ventilation, and lower autochthonous productivity reflects lake deepening between 4350 and 4200 cal yr BP. An abrupt shift in elemental concentrations and sediment density indicated the onset of lake drawdown at 4200 cal yr BP and a negative hydroclimate anomaly between 4200 and 4050 cal yr BP. Lower detrital flux, decreased sediment density, increased oxygenation, and higher autochthonous productivity, reflects a reduction in lake volume between 3200 and 3100 cal yr BP. The potential link between abrupt climate change at 4200 cal yr BP and the contraction of the Indus civilization is explored.

URDU-20 The Beginning of Saraiki Drama

Primarily the paper deals with the beginning, origin and evolution of Saraiki Drama. Drama is one of the important tools of expression in the society and it reflects the socio-cultural and political aspects of the society since from the earlier time of the human history. The term drama started from the ancient Greece and it travelled in the entire world. It highlights the different social aspects humanity through a practical role rather than theoretical point of view. In this area of Indus civilization Drama started with the settlement of Ariyans. Saraiki Drama is also an old tradition and we find it here as other area of the humanity. This research explores and highlights the as the above mention topic Saraiki Drama its origin and evolution in different periods.

New insights on the geological evolution of palaeorivers and their relationship to Indus Civilization and Early Historic settlements on the plains of Haryana, NW India

The Quaternary sediments and landscapes of the plains of north-western Haryana and the ancient settlement mounds distributed across them have great potential to reveal the history of the evolution and disappearance of palaeorivers and their relationship to the Indus Civilization and Early Historic periods in northwest India. There are numerous palaeochannels in Haryana, and their distribution and burial in the subsurface creates difficulties for accessing the archives and proxies necessary for developing insight into the timing of river flow and shift, and its relationship to settled populations. This paper investigates the deep and shallow subsurface sedimentary lithology of an area around Sirsa that is close to the course of the modern Ghagghar River. The paper presents additional age constraints provided by dates from the site of Rakhigarhi and examines a sedimentary substrate of a new archeological mound situated on the palaeochannel identified at a mound near Dhir village. New AMS radiocarbon dates of drifted charcoal from natural and cultural strata suggest human activity and/or natural burning in this region as early as 10405 to 10190 cal BP (8455 to 8240 cal BC). The substrate sediments recorded at Dhir mound indicate flooding events after the urban phase of the Indus Civilization.Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5604984

Impact of Indian Summer Monsoon Change on Ancient Indian Civilizations During the Holocene

A large part of South Asia receives rainfall mainly during the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) season of the year (Jun–Sep). The socioeconomic conditions of most of the developing countries in this region largely depend on the ISM rains. It also played important roles in rise and collapse of ancient civilizations in this region. However, the influence of the ISM on Indian ancient civilizations has not yet been fully explored though there were some attempts to correlate monsoon variation with their rise and fall. For example, in the mid to late Holocene period, Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization flourished in the western part of India from its early development, through its urbanization and eventual transformation into a rural society. Probably a prolonged decrease in the ISM rainfall caused the decline in the urban phase of the Indus Civilization around the 4.2 kyr BP global climate event. Another well-recorded early Holocene global climate event is the 8.2 kyr BP cooling event which also reportedly influenced ISM significantly, but its impact on human settlement is not clear in this region. The present study is a comprehensive review of the archaeological and climatological researches carried out on the role of ISM variability on the rise and fall of ancient Indian civilizations for the most part of the ongoing interglacial period, the Holocene. The review covers the studies on the period of the last 10 kyr as evidence suggests that human settlement and cultural developments in this region started around the beginning of this period. We have noted that the existing studies are mostly restricted to vague qualitative analysis of the weakening/strengthening of the ISM, and researches related to quantitative estimations of changes of the monsoon strengths and durations of drought events that caused collapse of civilizations are limited. Therefore, in the present analysis, emphasis has also been given on the requirement of estimating the absolute changes that might have caused cultural shifts. Some possible ways to quantitatively estimate the changes of some climate parameters are discussed.

Signals of Holocene climate transition amplified by anthropogenic land-use changes in the westerly–Indian monsoon realm

The Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall is the lifeline for people living on the Indian subcontinent today and was possibly the driver of the rise and fall of early agricultural societies in the past. The intensity and position of the ISM have shifted in response to orbitally forced thermal land–ocean contrasts. At the northwestern monsoon margins, interactions between the subtropical westerly jet (STWJ) and the ISM constitute a tipping element in the Earth's climate system because their non-linear interaction may be a first-order influence on rainfall. We reconstructed marine sea surface temperature (SST), supply of terrestrial material and vegetation changes from a very well-dated sediment core from the northern Arabian Sea to reconstruct the STWJ–ISM interaction. The Holocene record (from 11 000 years) shows a distinct, but gradual, southward displacement of the ISM in the Early to Mid-Holocene, increasingly punctuated by phases of intensified STWJ events that are coeval with interruptions of North Atlantic overturning circulation (Bond events). The effects of the non-linear interactions culminate between 4.6 and 3 ka BP, marking a climatic transition period during which the ISM shifted southwards and the influence of STWJ became prominent. The lithogenic matter input shows an up to 4-fold increase after this time period, probably related to the strengthened influence of agricultural activities of the Indus civilization, with enhanced erosion of soils. This anthropogenic land-use change is amplifying the impact of Bond events and adding to the marine sedimentation rates adjacent to the continent.

Ancestral Dravidian languages in Indus Civilization: ultraconserved Dravidian tooth-word reveals deep linguistic ancestry and supports genetics

Ever since the discovery of Indus valley civilization, scholars have debated the linguistic identities of its people. This study analyzes numerous archaeological, linguistic, archaeogenetic and historical evidences to claim that the words used for elephant (like, ‘pīri’, ‘pīru’) in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, the elephant-word used in the Hurrian part of an Amarna letter of ca. 1400 BC, and the ivory-word (‘pîruš’) recorded in certain sixth century BC Old Persian documents, were all originally borrowed from ‘pīlu’, a Proto-Dravidian elephant-word, which was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization, and was etymologically related to the Proto-Dravidian tooth-word ‘*pal’ and its alternate forms (‘*pīl’/‘*piḷ’/‘*pel’). This paper argues that there is sufficient morphophonemic evidence of an ancient Dravidian ‘*piḷ’/‘*pīl’-based root, which meant ‘splitting/crushing’, and was semantically related to the meanings ‘tooth/tusk’. This paper further observes that ‘pīlu’ is among the most ancient and common phytonyms of the toothbrush tree Salvadora persica, which is a characteristic flora of Indus valley, and whose roots and twigs have been widely used as toothbrush in IVC regions since antiquity. This study claims that this phytonym ‘pīlu’ had also originated from the same Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and argues that since IVC people had named their toothbrush trees and tuskers (elephants) using a Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and since these names were widely used across IVC regions, a significant population of Indus valley civilization must have used that Proto-Dravidian tooth-word in their daily communication. Since ‘tooth’ belongs to the core non-borrowable ultraconserved vocabulary of a speech community, its corollary is that a significant population of IVC spoke certain ancestral Dravidian languages. Important insights from recent archaeogenetic studies regarding possible migration of Proto-Dravidian speakers from Indus valley to South India also corroborate the findings of this paper.

Human- environment interactions during the mid-late Holocene and the Anthropocene - lessons from NW Indian plains and Bengal Delta

The Indian subcontinent today houses about one- third of the global population and is one of the most vulnerable regions to future climate variability. This region has seen changes in civilizations, kingdoms and more recently political regimes, that were intricately linked to changing environment over mid-late Holocene. A comparative analysis of human-environment interaction within different regions at different time scales of the Quaternary is however lacking. In this paper we discuss the human-environment interactions taking case studies from two diverse time periods and geographically different regions from the Indian sub-continent. First, we review and analyze the role of environmental change in the evolution of Indus civilization on the northwestern Indian subcontinent during the mid-late Holocene and secondly, we discuss the role of both the anthropogenic activities and environmental change during the Anthropocene in shaping up the Bengal delta. Overall, during the mid-late Holocene, Indus cultural transformations were driven by natural environmental changes, whereas the anthropogenic activities in the last few centuries modified the Bengal deltaic landscape which intensified the impacts of natural disasters - in both cases a change in socio-political scenarios occurred. Such studies can be used as benchmarks to understand the future response of societies to environmental changes.

An annotated bibliography of the Mohenjodaro studies in the Pakistani research journals

The publication of archaeological research is one of the important jobs the archaeologists should do. “Excavation without publication is destruction” is a famous axiom in archaeology. Once an archaeological site is exposed, it could not be restored despite the fact if the structures are conserved. Archaeologists aim to share as well as popularize archaeological discoveries and it necessitates the publication of results. Such endeavours result in preliminary reports, final reports, books, guidebooks, conference proceedings, scholarly articles in research journals, and popular articles in magazines and newspapers. All such forms of knowledge production and dissemination help archaeologists reach the target audience. Especially, research journal articles are primarily intended for specialists. This study focuses on the papers published on Mohenjodaro in Pakistani research journals (English). The study aims to prepare an annotated bibliography of the papers published on Mohenjodaro and place them in a broader perspective of the Indus Civilization. This research discovers that a total of 53 papers, which include reports of archaeological excavations, surveys, and conservation and preservation of monuments, research articles, a poem, and a book review, have been published on Mohenjodaro in Pakistani journals dedicated to archaeology, history, culture, and literature.