The Indus River valley civilization emerged around 2500 BC in South Asia. Cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were built with sophisticated sewage and drainage systems to protect against unpredictable monsoon flooding. The Indus River provided access to trade. This civilization developed an undeciphered writing system and evidence suggests a religiously-organized theocratic society until around 1500 BC when environmental changes and invasions contributed to its decline.

1. Planned Cities on the
Indus

2. The Geography of the Indian
Subcontinent
▪ Includes India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
▪ The highest mountains in the world separate this region from the rest of
Asia.
▪ The mountains and a large desert to the east provide natural defense for
the Indus River region.
▪ Fertile plains created by the Indus and Ganges Rivers.
▪ The Indo-Gangetic Plain stretches about 1,700 miles across northern India.
▪ Monsoons are seasonal winds that carry moisture.They dominate India’s
climate.They often create flooding. Droughts may happen when they fail
to appear.

3. The Indus River
• The Indus River is the longest
river in present day Pakistan.
• The Indus River begins in the
Himalayan Mountains, and
flows nearly 3,200 kilometers to
the Arabian Sea.
• The major cities of the Indus
Valley Civilization, Harappa and
Mohenjo Daro, dating to
around 3300 B.C., represent
some of the largest human
habitations of the ancient
world.

4. Environmental Challenges
• Flooding was unpredictable.
• Floods were beneficial by spreading nutrient-rich silt over a large area.
• Monsoons and their wet and dry seasons they brought were unpredictable.
• Too little rain and crops would fail.
• Too much rain produced floods that could wash away the crops.

5. The Emergence of civilization on
the Indus
• Evidence of agriculture and sheep domestication is dated to 7000 B.C.
• Around 2500 B.C. India’s first cities were built.They built earthen walls
and levees to keep the water from flooding the cities.
• Archeologists have found more than 100 settlements around the Indus
and its tributaries., mostly in modern-day Pakistan.
• The largest cities found were Harappa, Kalibangan, and Mohenjo-Daro.
• IndusValley civilization is sometimes called Harappan civilization.

6. Early Urban Planning
• Cities were built using a precise grid system, unlike Mesopotamian cities.
• Sophisticated plumbing and sewer systems that would have rivaled the
systems of the systems of the early 1800s.
• Harappa was built on mud-brick platforms to protect it from flooding.
• Thick brick wall about three and a half miles surrounded the city for protection.
• Houses featured bathrooms where wastewater flowed out to the street and
then to sewage pits.

8. Harappan Culture
• Developed a language made up of about 400 symbols. It was based upon
stamps and seals made of carved stone. It has yet to be deciphered.
• Housing suggests that there were probably not much social division. Artifcats
suggest relative prosperity.
• Rulers are believed to have had close ties to religion. Archeologists believe this
culture was a theocracy.
• They conducted trade with other cultures in the region.They crafted jewelry
from gold and silver from present-day Afghanistan.
• The Indus River provided access to the sea and a route to trade with distant
peoples, including the Mesopotamians.

10. The End of the Indus Valley Culture
• Evidence of tectonic plate shifts
• Earthquakes and floods may have changed the course of the Indus River.
• Trade would have been affected by the changes in the river.
• Production of food would have been impacted by the changes in the river.
• People may have left the cities in order to survive.
• Aryans, a nomadic people from the north, swept into the IndusValley around
1500 B.C.