Prehistoric Cultures & Indus Valley Civilisation

This topic is a bridge from the Stone Age record to the first urbanisation of the subcontinent. For Prelims, chronology and evidence matter more than grand labels.

• Meaning of prehistory: Prehistory covers the period before deciphered written records. In India it is reconstructed through stone tools, cave deposits, animal bones, pollen, ash layers, pottery, burials, settlement remains and scientific dating.
• Three Stone Age stages: Palaeolithic is mainly a hunting-gathering phase with core, flake and handaxe traditions; Mesolithic shows microliths, wider ecological adaptation and early domestication clues; Neolithic marks food production, polished stone tools, sedentary villages and pottery in many regions.
• Chronology trap: Indian dates vary by region. A rough exam frame is Lower Palaeolithic from about 2 million years ago, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic later in the Pleistocene, Mesolithic after the last Ice Age, and Neolithic from around the 7th millennium BCE in the north-west with later regional starts elsewhere.
• Harappan frame: The Harappan cultural sequence is usually discussed as Early Harappan, Mature Harappan and Late Harappan. Mature Harappan urbanism is commonly placed around 2600-1900 BCE, with regional antecedents before it and post-urban phases after it.
• Evidence hierarchy: A UPSC answer should distinguish an excavated fact from an interpretation. Brick ratios, drains, seals and weights are material facts; political form, language of the script and exact causes of decline remain debated.
• Geographical spread: Harappan sites cover the Indus system and adjoining zones: Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and western Uttar Pradesh. Important Indian sites include Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, Lothal, Kalibangan, Banawali, Surkotada and Alamgirpur.
• Not a single-line story: Prehistoric cultures did not simply disappear when Harappan cities rose. Several regional food-producing and craft traditions continued, interacted, or changed at different speeds.
• UPSC clue: Terms such as civilisation, culture, phase, site and horizon are not interchangeable. A site is a place; a culture is a recurring material pattern; a civilisation is a wider complex with urban, economic and social features.
• Dating methods: Radiocarbon dating is useful for organic material within its time range, while thermoluminescence, optically stimulated luminescence and palaeomagnetic methods may support other contexts. The exam point is that the date belongs to the sampled material, not automatically to every object found nearby.
• Prehistory and protohistory: Harappan culture is often treated as protohistoric because writing existed but remains undeciphered. This differs from pure prehistory, where writing is absent, and from history based on readable inscriptions or texts.