Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.52

c12.52

A state ruled over by priest-kings, wielding autocratic and absolute power from two main seats of government, and with the main artery of communication between the capital cities provided by a great navigable river, seems, then, to be the reasonable deduction from the archaeological evidence of the civilization of Harappā. To maintain the populations of such cities, and of the smaller towns to a large extent as well, an agrarian system sufficiently well organized to produce the necessary surplus must have existed, but there is no direct evidence of its nature, or of the systems of artificial irrigation which might well be expected to accompany it. We know that bread wheat (*Triticum compactum* and *sphaerococcum*) and barley (*Hordeum vulgare* and the *hexastichum* variety) were grown, as well as sesamum and field peas (*Pisum arvensis*), and a species of *Brassica* (perhaps *B. juncea*, the modern Indian *rai*). The cereal crops are of sufficient interest to merit further discussion.