Basic Issues in Harappan Archaeology: Some Thoughts

The identification of the Harappan Civilization in the earlytwentieth century was considered to be the most significant archaeological discovery inthe Indian Subcontinent as it pushed the beginning of settled life by 2000 years.Contemporary to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilizations it was unique in its townplanning. Spread over major parts of the western and north-western subcontinent, itsinfluence is seen to the Tajikistan border in the north and the Gulf region in the westwith over two thousand sites found till date. The past eight decades of research havebrought to light many important details of the culture including the cultural processinvolving its origin, maturity and decline but certain aspects such as the terminology,climatic influence, regional variations, script etc are still very flimsy. To gain moreinformation the focus of research will have to shift from Mega Site Archaeology to SmallSite Archaeology with large multidisciplinary research projects to acquire a moreholistic picture of the Harappan culture