Landscapes of Urbanization and De-Urbanization: A Large-Scale Approach to Investigating the Indus Civilization’s Settlement Distributions in Northwest India

Abstract

Survey data play a fundamental role in studies of social complexity. Integrating the results from multiple projects into large-scale analyses encourages the reconsideration of existing interpretations. This approach is essential to understanding changes in the Indus Civilization's settlement distributions (ca. 2600-1600 B.C.), which shift from numerous small-scale settlements and a small number of larger urban centers to a de-nucleated pattern of settlement. This paper examines the interpretation that northwest India's settlement density increased as Indus cities declined by developing an integrated site location database and using this pilot database to conduct large-scale geographical information systems (GIS) analyses. It finds that settlement density in northwestern India may have increased in particular areas after ca. 1900 B.C., and that the resulting landscape of de-urbanization may have emerged at the expense of other processes. Investigating the Indus Civilization's landscapes has the potential to reveal broader dynamics of social complexity across extensive and varied environments.

Mapping Archaeology While Mapping an Empire: Using Historical Maps to Reconstruct Ancient Settlement Landscapes in Modern India and Pakistan

“…There has been a long tradition of archaeological survey in South Asia, which has recorded numerous site locations [75][76][77][78]. While substantial numbers of 'proto-historic' sites are now known, up until the large scale survey projects started in the 1970s, the extent of the distribution of these elevated mounds was largely unrecognised.…”

Large-Scale, Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing of Palaeo-River Networks: A Case Study from Northwest India and its Implications for the Indus Civilisation

“…Notwithstanding the positional accuracy of these locations (see [10,63,64]), which would severely hamper their use for validation purposes, the results for the northern sector of the study area (Figure 3) suggest that proximity to the river might not be a good indication of contemporaneity as the fields close to the river channel might not have been the most productive in agricultural terms. Sites with an agricultural orientation might have preferred to occupy elevations above flooding level in the finer sediment accumulation area.…”

Large-scale, Multi-temporal Remote Sensing of Palaeo-river Networks: A Case Study from Northwest India and its Implications for the Indus Civilisation

“…Notwithstanding the positional accuracy of these locations [see 10,[63][64], the results for the northern sector of the study area (Fig. 3) suggest that proximity to the river might not be a good indication of contemporaneity as the fields close to the river channel might not have been the most productive in agricultural terms.…”

“…The traces of palaeo-rivers that have been identified cover the entirety of the landscape in the northern sector forming an almost continuous parallel pattern, which points to the changing nature of these channels and the likelihood that floods and river avulsions have been a relative common occurrence. The multiple origin of the waters feeding the palaeo-rivers includes glacier-fed sources, such as the palaeo-river sourcing at the Sutlej and the main Ghaggar-Hakra channel, as well as variable monsoonal rain sustained rivers [see 27,64]. The geographic source of watercourses ranges from the Himalayas to the Aravalli mountains, and seasonal rain patterns and discharge across this zone are very different.…”