An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s7.4

v1.c9.s7.4

This brings us to the problem of the origins of the Harappa culture. Once the question of Mesopotanian origins is ruled out, attention has been diverted to the plethora of the prehistoric rural cultures [4.8] of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, including Sind, antedating the Harappa culture and some even contemporary with it. Dales has classified these cultures into six phases—A to F, each culturally and technologically more advanced than the preceding one (Dales, 1965b, pp. 257-84). We are concerned here with his phases D to F, when the settlements got more nucleated and became larger and larger. Of them the Kulli culture of Phase E, preceding and even contemporary with the Harappa, anticipated the Harappa in its contacts with w. Asia, as typical Kulli material has been found on the island of Umm an-Nar (Abu Dhabi) in the Persian Gulf region—even beyond the w. range of Harappa contacts. Dales regards this phase as the ‘final stages of development that lead to the large urban settlements in the Indus valley and to what is called the Indus or Harappan civilization’ of Phase F.