Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.3

c12.3

FROM the hills to the plains; from a difficult mountainous country where each secluded valley is cut off from its neighbours to a great region linked from north to south by a river system forming a natural highway of communication; from villages, or at the most rustic market-towns, to cities which in size and organization rank high among the urban achievements of the whole Ancient Orient; this is the transition we make in turning from Baluchistan, and the prehistoric communities described in the last chapter, to the plains through which flow the Five Rivers of the Punjab and, to the south, the Indus. In this great area, where India really begins, eastward of the Baluchi mountain barrier, we encounter another group of prehistoric settlements which, though they share with the Baluchistan villages a common agricultural background and certain features of cultural affinity, yet in most respects present a contrast rather than a similarity