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The Mohenjo‐daro Floods: A Reply 1
Author(s) -
Possehl Gregory L.
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1967.69.1.02a00040
Subject(s) - indus , abandonment (legal) , human settlement , subsistence agriculture , interpretation (philosophy) , history , archaeology , structural basin , geography , geology , geomorphology , law , philosophy , political science , agriculture , linguistics
Over the past three years a theory concerning the abandonment of the ancient cities of the Indus Valley has been advanced: that these settlements were engulfed by a sea of mud that accumulated behind a naturally formed dam across the Indus River. This article reviews this theory and finds it lacking in two respects: ( 1 ) the evidence for the dam is extremely thin and could be accounted for in other ways; ( 2 ) even if the dam did form, one can object to the interpretation that it would surely have led to the abandonment of the whole of the Indus Valley. The present author sets forth an alternative theory. This theory proposes that the cities and settlements were abandoned because the Harappans were overutilizing their land and that they sealed their own fate with the patterns of subsistence that they choose to use.