Harappa civilization is one of the largest of the world's early civilizations

contemporaneous to Mesopotamia and Egypt. It was unearthed by British and

Indian archaeologists in the 1920s though the bricks from this era were being
noticed since 1856 AD. Their finds produced buildings, tools, jewellery and
sculpture dating back to 3000 BC, the earliest piece of pottery dating back to
3500 BC. It is estimated that small habitations had begun to come up along the
Indus river at that time. Standardised weights, measures, bricks, drainage
system, planned roads, toilets in houses and granaries dating back to 2300 BC,
are evident of the well-developed urban society. The city plan with roads double
the width of side lanes suggest that Harappan settlements were the first planned
urban centres in the world.

The Harappan culture flourished from 2300 BC to 1900 BC after which its decline
began. Presence of Harappan stamps in Mesopotamia suggest trade relations
between Indus valley and MesopotamiaThe end of the civilization is estimated to
be between 1800 BC to 1600 BC.

A theory of Aryan invasion leading to the decline of Harappan civilization was put
forward in 1944 by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the then Director General of
Archaeological Survey of India. He came up with this theory upon finding
fortification around the site of Harappa and relating it with a text in Rig Veda
that talked about Lord Indra bringing down a fort. The text in question is related
to a war between two Aryan clans and Wheeler's misinterpretation is suspected
to be based on white-supremacist and ideology. Moreover the skeletal remains
found in excavations do not show any discontinuity, making it clear that there
was no influx of new settlers with a different physiognomy.

Moreover, the Aryans were a horse- domesticating tribe and the earliest remains
of horses found on any of the Harappan sites are dated back to 1700 to 1500
BC, the time by which the Harappan civilization had already perished. This
suggests that the Aryans came to Harappan sites after its decline and only a
handful of horse remains in the area suggest that they never settled in any of
these sites.

Climate, economic, and social changes all played a role in the process of
urbanization and collapse. A recent study concluded by Dr Robbins Schug,
Appalachian University, suggests that the marginalised communities in
Harappan civilization were vulnerable to violence and disease. The study shows

that leprosy was prevalent in the urban phase of Harappan civilization. New
diseases like tuberculosis also appear in the later part of Harappan civilization.

Individuals who were excluded from city's formal cemeteries were hit the worst
by violence and disease. In a small ossuary southeast of the city men, women
and children were found interred in a small pit. 50 percent of the bodies were
found hit by violence and 20 percent were infected by leprosy.

The Indus Valley civilization had begun with Indus on one side and GhaggarHakra valley on the other side. Today the Indus flows in east of the site and
Ghaggar-Hakra has dried up. The drying up of one river and shifting of another
across the site was a major reason for the decline of the ancient city of
Mohenjodaro.

The later excavations in areas of Punjab and Bhagwanpura, Haryana have given
proofs of some Harappan artefacts which suggest that the Harappans left their
lands and settled in these areas as a result of diseases, natural calamities and
socio-economic conditions.

The earliest traces of civilization in the Indian subcontinent have been found on
the banks of the Indus river. Excavations first conducted in 1921-22, in the
ancient cities of Harappa andMohenjodaro, both now in Pakistan, pointed to a
highly complex civilization that first developed some 4,500-5,000 years ago, and
subsequent archaeological and historical research has now furnished us with a
more detailed picture of the Indus Valley Civilization and its inhabitants.