The document provides information on the early Indus River Valley civilization and how geography influenced its development. It describes the location of the Indian subcontinent and key geographic features like the Himalayan mountains and monsoon rains. It discusses the origins of civilization in the Indus River valley around 2500 BC, with major cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro that had advanced urban planning with grid layouts and drainage systems. The civilization traded with others along the Indus and Tigris rivers but eventually declined around 1500 BC as Aryan groups migrated into the region.
2. Review
Rivers
Names, Geographic Features
Writing Systems
Nomads
Architecture-Buildings
What was their purpose?
3. What We Will Learn Today:
How did geography effect the Indus
River Valley civilization?
4. India’s Geographic Features
The Indian subcontinent is
a large, wedge-shaped
peninsula that extends
southward into the Indian
Ocean.
Subcontinent: A large
region that is part of a
continent, but is separated
from the rest of the content
in some way.
10. Himalayan Mountains
This peninsula is surrounded
on the north and northwest
by huge mountains, the
Himalayan Mountains.
This has often limited India's
contact with other cultures.
This is known as cultural
isolation.
You decide! How would
isolation impact the people
on Ancient Indus?
11. Seasonal winds known as monsoons bring rain every summer.
India is dependent upon monsoons to grow their crops. Not
enough rain brings drought. When there is too much rain,
rivers rise and cause deadly floods and destruction of crops.
15. Roots of Indus Valley Civilization
Roots of Indus Valley began
as early as 7000 B.C.E.
Herders who moved into the
river valley during colder
months.
They began trading by boat
along the Indus down into the
Arabian Sea, into the Persian
Gulf, and up the Tigris and
Euphrates into Mesopotamia.
16. Civilization in the
Indus River Valley Begins
About 2500 BC, about the
time when the pyramids
were rising in Egypt, the
first Indian civilizations
were forming in the Indus
River Valley.
Little is known about these
civilizations, but Harappa
and Mohenjo-Daro were
most likely twin capital
cities.
17. Roots of Indus Valley Civilization
Earliest civilizations in Indus
Valley was discovered in
1856 by a railroad crew.
Harappa
Mohenjo-Dara or “Hill of the
Dead”
Both cities shared urban design
and architectural features.
3 miles in circumference with
populations of 40,000
18.
19. Purpose of Early Cities
Each city was large in
area and contained a
large structure located
on a hilltop.
Many believe these
structures could have
served as a fortress or
even a temple.
20.
21.
22. Complexities of the Cities
The most historically striking
feature of these two cities both
were well planned.
Each city was laid out in a grid
pattern, the blocks similar to
those seen in modern cities.
The homes seem to have been
built with bricks and in a pattern
repeated throughout the city.
25. Plumbing In the Cities
In addition, these cities
seem to contain houses
with plumbing
systems, including
baths, drains and water
pipes.
26. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
•Private houses, almost every one
with its own well, bathing space,
and toilet consisting of a brick seat
over a drainage area.
•Brick-lined drains flushed by water
carried liquid and solid waste to
sumps, where it was carted away,
probably to fertilize nearby fields.
27.
28. Trade with Sumer
Most of the people of the
Indus valley were farmers.
They were the first people
to grow cotton and weave
it into cloth.
There is early evidence of
trade with other
civilizations including
Sumer.
29. Aryans Take over Indus Valley
Approximately 1500 B.C.E. a
nomadic and pastoral people They
called themselves “Aryans” or
“noble people.”
They established small herding
and agricultural communities
throughout northern India.
Their migrations took place over
several centuries.
30. Aryan Migration
pastoral depended on their cattle.
warriors horse-drawn chariots.
31. Aryan Influence on Harappan
Society
Their arrival was not an invasion or organized military
campaign
By the time Aryans entered India, internal problems had
already brought Harappan society to the point of collapse
During the centuries after 1500 B.C.E., Dravidian and Indo-
European peoples intermarried and laid social and
cultural foundations that influenced Indian society
32. Aryan Influence on Harappan
Society
The Aryans survived on
sheep and goats.
The especially prized their
horses and cattle
The Aryans consumed both
dairy products and beef.
Centuries later cattle would
become sacred.
33.
34. The
1V20e0 BdCEa-6s00
B.C.E.
Hindu core of
beliefs:
hymns and poems.
religious
prayers.
magical spells.
lists of the gods
and goddesses.
Rig Veda oldest work.
35. The
8Vth –e 9dth Caenstury
B.C.E.
Dharma (right action), Artha
(purpose), kama (pleasure), and
moksha (liberation)
Hindu core of
beliefs:---Bhagavad
Gita
Epics- Ramayana
and Mahabharata.
Mahabharata- ten
times longer than
Iliad and Odyssey
Rig Veda oldest work.
36. The Vedic Age
The foundations
for
Hinduism were
established!
37. The Caste System
•Originally based on color: Aryans were “wheat-colored”
and Dravidians were darker skinned.
•Four Main Varnas or Castes:
•Priests (brahmins)
•Warriors and Aristocrats (Kshatriyas)
•Cultivators, artisans, and merchants (vsaishyas)
•Landless peasants and serfs ( shudras)
•Untouchables (people who performed dirty tasks)
added much later
38. Jati (Subcastes)
•As Vedic Society became
more complex and specialized,
the caste system changed to
include specialized
occupations.
•Occupation determined an
individuals jati (subcaste).
39. Caste System (“Varnas”)
Brahmins: the priests
Kshatriyas: the warriors
Vaisyas: merchants and peasants
Sudras: non-Aryans
40. The Development of a Patriarch Society
•Aryan Society had a strong patriarchal social order at the
time of their migration into India.
•All priests, warriors and tribal chiefs were men.
•Women influenced affairs within their families but had no
public authority.
•Women rarely learned the Vedas and were denied
formal education.
•Sati, the practice of a wife sacrificing herself on her
husband’s funeral pyre, was considered noble.
41. How does the treatment
of women in the Indus
Valley differ from the
other River Valley
Civilizations?
42. The Upanishads
•Appeared late in Vedic Age, around 800
to 400 B.C.E.
•Upanishad means “sitting in front of” and
refers to practice of disciples gathering
before a sage for discussion of religious
issues.
•The Upanishads were dialogues that
explored the Vedas.
43. Religion and Vedic Age
•Modern historians have often
interpreted the Upanishads as a
way to justify social inequalities
imposed by the Caste System.
•The doctrines of Samsara and
karma have reinforced the Vedic
social order.
45. China’s Geographic Features
Huang He or
Yellow River
Yangzi River
~ Chinese civilization
grew up in the river valley
of the Huang He River
(a.k.a.the Yellow River)
and the Yangzi River.
47. The mountains, deserts, jungles and other geographic
features have isolated Chinese culture. Having little
contact with others , the Chinese believed their culture
was the center of the earth.
48. ~ Although China
covers a huge
area, until recent
times, most people
lived only along the
east coast or in the
river valley.
49.
50.
51. Early Views
The Chinese called
themselves “The
Middle Kingdom”
because they believed
they were at the center.
This is an example of
ethnocentrism.
52. Shang Dynasty
About 1650 BC, the Shang
gained control of northern
China. Ruling families
began to gain control,
similar to small kingdoms.
The Shang set up the first
dynasty.
Dynasty: A series of rulers
from a family.
53.
54. The ancient civilization was much like others
with nobility owning the land, merchants and
craftspeople trading and living in the cities
and a large population of peasants living in
surrounding villages.
55. Polytheistic Peoples
Early Chinese people
were polytheistic, and
prayed to many Gods
and nature spirits.
They also looked to
dead relatives to help
them in daily life and
to help them please the
Gods.
56.
57.
58. Ying and Yang
Many Chinese also
believed that the
universe held a delicate
balance between
opposing forces.
The Ying and Yang
must be in balance for
prosperity and happiness
to occur in one’s life.
59. Early Writing System
The Chinese civilizations made achievements in
early writing systems that include both pictographs
and ideographs and is now as one of the earliest
writing systems.
Editor's Notes
Confined to the north and west by mountains, and to the east by desert, the Indus valley had by 2500 B.C.E. developed a sophisticated urban culture based on individual walled cities, sharing common patterns of urban design. In terms of geographical extent this civilization was the largest in the world in its time.
At first scholars thought the civilizations of the Indus Valley had developed the art of city building from the Sumerians and other people of Mesopotamia, but later scholars believed that Harappa had grown up independently.
Written records, the key that re-opened the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt are scarce in the Indus valley. The only written materials so far discovered are seal inscriptions that give only limited information. Scholars have not succeeded in their attempts to decipher the script. They differ substantially in their interpretations. As a result, our understanding is limited.
The civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt never disappeared completely. Hebrew and Greek accounts and surviving artifacts, like the pyramids kept them alive in popular imagination.
The civilization of the Indus valley was lost almost entirely, so its excavation did not begin until the 1920’s.
Railroad crew in 1856 discovered thousands of old fire-baked bricks in the desert and use them to lay the road bed. Scattered among the old bricks workers discovered steatite stone seals marked with artistic designs.
During the 2nd millennium BCE as Harappan society declined, bands of foreigners filtered into the Indian subcontinent and settled throughout the Indus valley and beyond. Most prominent were nomadic and pastoral peoples speaking Indo European languages who called themselves Aryans. Interchange between the resident Harappans and the invading Aryans produced new, hybrid cultural forms that we know primarily from the Aryan records. Ironically, these records are almost entirely literary and artistic. Reversing the Harappan pattern, the early Aryans have left a treasure of literature, but virtually no architectural or design artifacts.
Caste comes the Portuguese word casta which refers to a social class of herditary and unchangeable status. When Portuguese merchants visited India during 16th century, they noticed the sharp, inherited distinctiosn between different social groups, which they referred to as castes. Scholars have employed the term caste ever since in reference to the Indian social order.
When Aryans first entered India, they probably had a fairly simple society consisting of herders and cultivators led by warrior chiefs and preists. As they settled in India, however, growing social complexity and interaction with Dravidian peoples promted them to refine their social distincitions. The Aryans used the term varna, a Sanskrit word meaning color to refer to the major social classes. This terminology suggests that social distinctions arose partly from differences in complexion between the Aryans who referred to themselves as wheat colored and the darker skinned Dravidians. Over time Aryans and Dravidian mixed, mingled, interacted, and intermarried to the point that distinguishing between them was impossible. Nevertheless in early Vedic times differences between the two peoples probably prompted Aryans to ase social distinctions on Aryan or Dravidian ancestry.
After about 1000 BCE the Aryan increasingly recognized four main varns.