A second fixed point in the Chronology of the Harappa Culture

Abstract

Fixed points in the chronology of the Harappa Culture are not abundant and such as exist tend rather to emphasize the earlier phases of that remarkable civilization. Evidence for close contact with Akkad about 2300 B.C., based primarily on stamp-seals, has been the subject of review by Piggott, and much clearer light has been forthcoming as a result of excavations at Harappa by the Archaeological Survey of India during 1946 under the direction of Professor R. E. M. Wheeler. These excavations included cuttings through the rampart of the citadel, and investigations of the later cemeteries superimposed on the culture. Whilst accepting the evidence for the earlier fixed point Wheeler faces up to the problems raised by these cemeteries and is strongly inclined after reviewing the facts available, and certain passages in the Rigveda, to agree with Childe that the ‘Cemetery H intruders “may belong to Aryan invaders”, the conventional date for whose first incursion into India is the 15th century B.C.’. As a result he concludes that ‘the combined weight, such as it is, of these various indications suggests the millennium 2500-1500 B.C. as a possible inclusive date for the mature Harappa civilization, without prejudice to the still-unplumbed depths of Mohenjo-daro’.Attention has recently been focussed by Piggott on these later phases of the civilization as a result of a study of the type and distribution of certain spiral headed and animal headed pins, and of a bronze mace-head found at Mohenjo-daro and Chanhu-daro. He here sees clear evidence pointing to trade contacts or folk movements from the West and affecting India at the end of the Harappa phase, if not indeed when it was actually defunct, probably ‘after 2000 B.C. rather than before and possibly some centuries later’. And with Wheeler he does not appear to be disinclined to accept the traditional date of about 1400 B.C. for the incursions into India ; though both are fully aware, and in fact state categorically, that the Akkadian contacts are the only well fixed chronological points.