Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.29

c12.29

The intrusive barbarians responsible for the final occupation of the ruined Harappā sites at Chanhu-daro, Harappā, and elsewhere seem also to have connexions with the Hissar III-Anau III complex of cultures, perhaps indeed representing their final stages, and a migration eastwards from the North Iranian-Turkestan regions. On the whole their arrival in India is not likely to have been until two or three centuries after 2000 - the round figure of 1500 B.C. is conveniently approximate. So the evidence from the west suggests that the mature Harappā civilization - and it must be repeated that this is the only phase of the culture we know at present - flourished within the millennium 2500-1500 B.C. Of its end we are more certain than of its beginning, but we can say that during that millennium there was little appreciable change in the fabric and pattern of this enigmatic civilization. In the following pages, therefore, we are less hampered than we might be by methods of excavation which were stratigraphically uncritical, and we can use the whole body of evidence to build up a picture of the Harappā people and their achievements.