Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c13.57

c13.57

In sum, however, the evidence from Baluchistan and from Sind and the Punjab is reasonably consistent in implying that at some period likely to have been before 1500 B.C. (to use a convenient round figure) the long-established cultural traditions of North-Western India were rudely and ruthlessly interrupted by the arrival of new people from the west. The burning of the Baluchi villages and the equipment of the graves at Shahi-tump suggest that these new arrivals were predominantly conquerors who travelled light, and adopted the pottery traditions of the regions in which they established themselves. In Sind, at Chanhu-daro, a barbarian settlement appears in the deserted ruins of the Harappā town, and here some local craftsmen may have remained to work for alien masters, while the pottery suggests a resurgence of local, non-Harappā elements. At Mohenjo-daro it seems clear that the civilization that had survived so long was already effete and on the wane when the raiders came, and at Harappā we know from the evidence of the rebuilding of the Citadel walls that the inhabitants were on the defensive in the last days of the city, though these precautionary measures did not suffice to keep away the intruders, wherever they came from, who afterwards settled on the ruins and buried their dead in cemetery H for generations. From the Ganges Valley comes evidence suggestive of a spread of techniques and peoples eastward from the old Harappā kingdom as danger threatened from the west.