Alright, I'm brand new here, like "I'm 4 minutes into my first video on this channel, and have read the channel's about section" new, but my interest is already peaked. It's not every day that I find an actual archaeology-focused TH-cam channel that isn't just a bunch of pseudoscience. Also, am I correct to guess from the flag in the background that you are some flavor of leftist?
Remains of large ICV Sites are found in N.E India ( in U.P. ), leading back to 2500 BCE. This findings is of 2018 -19. Can you share more details on this. As right now very little is available on Internet.
Stefan Milo Amazing! It's good to see an actual archaeological channel for once, let alone a left leaning one (I'm not too picky about ideology, if the topics are good, but I'm fairly left-wing myself.) So, anyways, thanks for being here!
Imagine being the leader of your civilization but staying humble and living in the same houses as everyone else, then 5000 years later some guy with a spoon roasts you for only having 70 pots
@@NimishNadgere it's basically just a running joke, he used to have a small mic that he would clip on to a plastic spoon. It got popular enough that now with a big mic he still has the spoon.
As an Indian my first instinct is that walls and weapons are needed in this subcontinent for protection against dangerous animals which were abundant. Weapons may have been needed for hunting also. I have no idea if the civilization fought wars but they had to tackle wild animals for sure and this included rhinos, elephants and wild cats (tigers/lions). Maybe that aspect deserves recognition in the narrative which otherwise seems presumed. But in any case thanks for this. Excellent work.
@@koobie83 Wild animals depicted on Indus Seals include Tiger, Rhino, Buffalo, Elephant etc. Leopards would not have merited a seal where tigers roamed :) They must have also been there.
@@sumitsen you think these walled cities which were massive urban centres unlike any other in the world at the time was just a city surrounded by forest? It was most definitely surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmlands and pastures which helped in keeping the city fed. On top of that there must've been a network of roads connecting these cities and all the villages between them. The deep forests where the animals that you mentioned reside, already avoiding human contact, wouldn't be anywhere near those cities. And you need a wall that is literally meters in thickness and has bastions to prevent wild animals? What wild animals are you dealing with? An army of dinosaurs? I don't wish to sound rude and I encourage discussion but how do people even suggest such a thing?
I’m 68 years old now and every time I’ve seen the image of the “priest-king” since I was a kid I wondered how they came to that conclusion if there is no decipherment of the script and no markings on the statue, I’m so glad you’ve brought this issue up. It reminds me of how all anomalous artifacts discovered are , or used to be, claimed as religious for absolutely no good reason.
@@daniel-cc7bn Yeah and… ? where’s the evidence that this depicts a Brahmin, priest or king? It’s simply a small figure of a man with nicely coiffed beard and hair.
@@daniel-cc7bn actually no, the kings can only be Kshatriyas, Brahmins can only be priests and gurus/acharya. Since Kings need to wage wars or defend their country they need to belong to the warrior caste. There may be some exceptions but this is the general varna system
@@daniel-cc7bn actually that’s completely wrong, Brahmins could not become Kings they were forbidden Only Kshatriyas could be Kings Brahmins could only be advisors, priests, teachers, rishis, etc…
One important factor was the presence of pluming, proto-ventalation, and organized well planned cities. This shows they must have had some kind of bureaucracy. The question is who these ancient bureaucrats answered to. If they answered to the people in some proto-democratic way then it makes sense that the people would invest in such creature comforts that most of us wouldn't get until only 100 or so years ago. But even if they did answer to a monarch or cabal of oligarchs, this shows that any present elite was incentivized to invest resources in public goods and improvement of the general quality of life. There also could have been a combination, where an existing elite was politically balanced in someway by the people or their institutional proxies such as guilds or religious orders. Regardless of the political organization, its fair to say they the people of the bronze age Indus river valley had one of the highest observable qualities of life for anyone living in that era.
Before the Mayan language was translated there was a school of thought that they lived in perfect peace and harmony. The inscriptions pretty much killed that idea.
Academics swoon over the ideas of a Utopia. Believing in what is unbelievable, unproveable and improbable, yet they seek it in everything. To play devil's advocate, the Maya DID live in peace and harmony, unless you weren't Maya.
@@Leon-wz1js I don't think so. Most of the translated Mayan inscription i have read tell about wars between the kings of Mayan Cities, not with Non-Maya Cities.
@@8ahau279 My understanding of the Maya, was there was one core city state, that attacked and assimilated neighboring civilizations, expanding their empire. Now war, or resource raids, was common between city states, but those were assimilated city states, not the core Mayans. I believe the core Mayan city state didn't conflict with itself, which is what I was talking about. Other city states might have been part of the Mayan civilization, but they were not true Mayans.
What I'm getting from this video is that either they were egalitarian, or they had strict hierarchies/a ruling class which functioned so differently from what we're used to seeing that we can't even recognise it as such. Either way, it's cool how unusual it is.
Imagine working really hard with Bronze Age tools on a big wall to protect your village and being really proud of it, just for a bunch of nerds a few thousand years later to say it couldn’t possibly have been built to keep out enemies
Putting squarish bastions on a wall that's purely for water control I don't think is a good idea. The resistance of that square shape would help in undermining it.
@@thhseeking you are so right. The civilization would have understood this and used shapes to move water away. Angles are for waves of mankind. Or status symbols. They could have been made to keep slaves inside. The Spartans used their walls for this reason.
Fascinating. I see some potential similarities between the Indus Valley Civilisation and The Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture of Ancient Ukraine. Their ‘mega-sites’ are often thought to have been egalitarian without class distinction.
Cucuteni is in Romania. Actually, the common ownership of things like forests or ponds was something that carried on even among Romanians in the Middle Ages as the unwritten law of the land. The ancient Dacians that assimilated that Cucuteni culture were also a predominantly rural society and they didn't build large cities, despite their knowledge of medicine, astronomy, weapon making and a religion that made the acceptance of Christianity easier (a supreme deity, belief in immortality of the soul, belief that life is dominated by suffering and injustice)
@@kartiktiriya2612 On TH-cam, you can see the Dacian Falx (weapon), you can see Sarmizegetusa, the Dacian capital (with its fortress and sacred zone) - Sarmizegetusa Regia, after which the Romans built Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. There is also a documentary about Zalmoxis, produced by the journalist and writer Daniel Roxin and posted on TH-cam. Also, for a broader overview of the Thracians, of which Dacians were the northern branch, you can watch the documentary "The Thracians, a Hidden History"
I am from central area of india called vidharbha when I saw the teracota toy of Indus velly civilization I realised I used play with same shape of teracota toy , even we have a festival named pola where we make bull and chariot of teracota and go each house for gift and toffies . Even our jewelry also look very similar to indius velly civilization .
After the collapse of IVC, the population moved to the north east and south. We don't see them retaining the idea of infrastructure but they must have retained the idea of poetry and toy-making. They were used in trade.
After collapse of IVC. Various other civilization came to existence in India. One such was in deccan that was Daimabad copper ware civilization in current Aurangabad, MH. This site has bronze toys similar to that of mature IVC time.
The Indus valley civilization is most underrated civilization in the world. The structured town plan with multistory buildings and proper drainage plan and street plan comparable to 18th century cities is uncomparable to any other 4000 years ago. It was a proper urban civilization,even Egypt with its massive pyramids was nowhere close to Indus valley civilization.
There could actually be only 88 burials at one site because those buried were foreigners who happened to die in the city, for whom burial was their custom. The natives may have been very thoroughly cremated.
@Rahul continuity is not stability. The dynamic of the caste system isn't even what it was in precolonial India. The bronze age version, if it had yet developed, would likely be unrecognizable
Why, indeed, the spoon? I saw another video by him with a small clip-on microphone (the kind you clip on to your shirt) attached to the spoon. Just his quirky tradition I guess.
the 18m thick wall is definitely built for another purpose, with defense just a bonus. 18m is much thicker than a medieval castle wall, and can withstand cannon shots before they even have siege weapons. Also, lacking a ruler whose ambition is to boss around other rulers could reduce the number of wars they fought (among each other), given how many wars in history can be boiled down to "king A wants more stuff from king B"
That’s significantly smaller than the walls of Uruk, Babylon and Nineveh. A mudbrick wall can be pulled apart with basic tools (siege hooks), unlike a stone wall, so it needs to be much thicker to give defenders time to respond.
@@cacamilis8477 first of all they didn't have stone walls but mudbrick walls. also their walls are not strong enough for invading armies. At best these wall are for economic control by authorities or saving towns from floods. IVC had a material culture with no more than a 5% of urban population of the total, there can be thieves and dacoits in every material culture, walls could be used for saving urban clusters from thieves. By no means these wall strong enough to protect from armies. I don't know who told you there was violent neighbors, was these neighbors from maharashtra or rajasthan or afghanistan or himachal or kashmir or UP or Iran or central Asia, as it was opened to be attacked from any side. Was these attackers ancient Tamils or Ancient Tibetan or someone else?
@@dheera8889 How do you know mudbrick walls would not have been strong enough? After all theyve survived for millenia. How do you know which percentage of IVC were urban compared to rural, and why does that matter? I have no idea whether they had a violent neighbouring civilisation, nomadic horde or migrating people, or consecutive bandits, let alone where they came from. It might explain why so many IVC cities were burned down relatively soon after each other though.
War and hierarchy has been a staple of human civilization for a very long time, but cooperation and sharing are even older. We wouldn't have the numbers to fight wars if we didn't grow, and we can't grow without sharing and cooperating.
Maybe we should think about our own conception of expressing hierarchy. Of course, it is most common to see, especially in Antiquity, hierarchy expressed in material remains -pyramids, for example-, but this society may have developped hierarchy in other ways: such as social or economic relations that didn't create any material remains
Could also simply be a spiritual afterlife, so no need to give gramps a lot of stuff with him and the pots had a different meaning, rather than being an expression of hierarchy, like number of family members?
@@aitorboadabenito1362 throwing a potential example, the sumptuary laws of the middles ages restricting by class the cloth people could wear and the colours of dye they could use. Although this didn't necessarily collate to wealth- rich merchants in France were banned from wearing blue (because it had traditionally been expensive) but instead wore a hideously vibrant orange that was imported from the far east and was actually much more expensive. That sort of thing wouldn't have shown up in the archaeological record.
@@daveharrison4697 very good point: maybe we should think that they, indeed, had mortuary practices that produced material remains. They simply weren't preserved. Thanks, Dave!
Same! So many secrets that could tell us so much, just sitting there catching dust and being pretty. Honestly, this is also a good reason for the need to preserve indigenous languages of colonized lands, and local dialects of prevalent languages.
Fascinating, just fascinating. When I was a kid, we took a school trip to Lothal which has the archaeological remains of a Harappa Town. I remember being told about their water management and being shown some of the structures believed do have been used to store water along with some water ways, also saw those public baths. Though we saw the sight from afar, a friend of mine managed to fine a human tooth and all of us were so fascinated like we had made a discovery haha. I believe the tooth was taken by a person working at the museum nearby.
I thought since the pots look more like cups, perhaps it were the number of people who attended these funerals, and perhaps only people were buried that were foreign workers or perhaps town-mayors that died during office, the normal people were probably burned and put in the river.
Let’s be fair, there wasn’t a Chinese empire until a thousand year after the collapse of Indus Valley civilization. Artifacts of the Chinese cultures from the times of Indus Valley civilization were also simple pots and jade tools, and the direct ancestor of the proper Chinese culture started after 12th century bc, nearly half a millennium after the Aryan conquest of India.
@@kyriakos232 the Aryan invasion theory has been debunked throughout and you really need to stop using it. There was mostly likely only a migration or mixing. There was no conquest AT ALL. It's a bogus theory that was used by British colonizers to exacerbate the caste divide in India during the 19th century.
@@kanjuicy585 indeed, Dravidian civilization in Indus Valley already collapsed before Aryan arrived, and despite gradual intermingle of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan resulting a culturally Indo-Aryan dominated north India, this wasn’t the result of a single significant event that can be described as a conquest. But old habits die hard, sorry, I would try to use more accurate description next time.
There were two burial styles mentioned in Rig Ved; one is the burial in the ground, and the other is with Fire God ( cremation ). That can be why you find a mismatch between no. of graves and population size.
@@vemmanr there's no proof for it, only speculations. We don't even know the origin time of the rig ved or it's predecessors so you can't say for sure which one is older or if the IVC were the successors of rig vedic people themselves.
@@esmeelin5435Not really we know the people in Harappan civilisation did not follow rig veda and Rig Veda came from Iran much later after the Harrapan civilisation was disbanded Infact Look it up we have artworks and pot isotoped showing beef consumption at a very high level in IVC. They also dont have any Yagya places or structures we usually do associate with Vedic gods
@@whatthehell4682Beef was popular in aryans of that time as well. So popular that it was ceromonially consumed during festival. Aryans did not come from iran they came from the central asian steppe. They did not intermix with bmac which suggests that they did not come from iran. Genetic tests in swat valley proves it
Hello , thanks for your video . I'm Curator and collection incharge of Indus Valley Civilization in National Museum New Delhi. Your explanation is really easy to understand and nicely narrated, thank you.
I'm pretty sure as an Indian they had a deity, a early version of SHIVA or proto - Shiva. The seals found in the Indus Valley can be seen depicting a being sitting in a certain posture which is the exact replica of how Shiva is depicted today, can't just be a coincidence. Show a glimpse of that seal to people who have no clue about history & the Indus Valley civilization in India, they'll instantly say SHIVA.
@@menorcaventura3442 yes Shiva I'm DEAD sure is a IVC diety nothing to do with the indo European migrants. That famous seal which was found depicts a posture of a being so similar to the depiction of Shiva, it simply cannot be a coincidence.
@@menorcaventura3442 AMT is debated a lot. Don't take it as a fact. Acc to Dr. BB Lal the most famous archaeologist of independent India, there was a cultural continuity from IVC.
@Vishwas Singh so if aryans "invaded", why would they prefer having their gods dark skinned (with respect to Dravidian population if that's what you were trying to imply), wouldn't they favor their fair skin gods? People who invade dont care about the culture of the people they've won over -_- Indo-iranian makes sense, because indian civilisation has covered those regions. But indo Europeans is just... eh... there are things that just doesn't make any sense.
@@menorcaventura3442 damn people still believe in this😂😂 I thought max Muller theory died in this thread I can see people not knowing about it another European agenda taken by nazi and people still believing it lol🤷♂️🤦
Maybe 70 pots in a grave could mean he/she had 70 friends and family members who brought something to use in the afterlife, where the other person with 30, only had 30 friends/family member who brought gifts to the departed. Kind of like somebody now days slipping something in the coffin to be buried with them. Just thinking, what would I do?
I just emailed this to myself scheduled a year from now. As a sociologist and soon to be economist, you convinced me that fallen civilizations are worth researching. Thanks!
@@du2x467 isn't a utopia by definition a perfect and sustainable political organisation? I would think that a utopia wouldn't have a risk of people revolting
I disagree about liberal utopia requiring less government. Liberalism needs a government, a strongman type to enforce liberal values. Liberalism is sometimes depicted in the top right of the political compass for a reason.
I like how you present the debate and the different avenues of thought before giving your opinion, but even then you leave it up for debate. In truth, a large part of what we "know" is conjecture, some better than others. I just like your approach of presenting it as what we think we know. But it is so fascinating even tho we can't be totally sure about most of it.
@Something Mildly Homophobic I'm just curious, why do you think someting possibly having religious significance a cop out? There have been many relitions through out history and it did indeed have much significance along the way. Religion has been used as a tool by those in power for thousands of years. And it was and is a source of comfort for many. What they believe ore believed doesn't make it true or not true, but it has indeed been a powerful force for a very long time both for those in power and for those who felt downtroden as well.
@@BirdYoumans Well, i think it is some king of archaeological joke. When archaeologists find an object and they have no clue what was its function, they slap the label 'probably religious'
@@Joostmhw Yeah, but this is youtube. And it is kind of rare to see it be done like this on this platform. Always presenting what they most believe to be the case in history as fact.
Ah, no problem laddie, you can split someone's head with them as well as the socketed ones. Party time!!! (For certain personalities, not mine I hasten to add)
This is total speculation but possibly their spirituality (if any) had no use for elaborate burials and monuments and temples. Similarly, their religion/culture/whatever may have placed great value on uniformity or asceticism but still had very clear power disparities. I'm not saying any of this is true, just that there are many alternatives to "they must have been egalitarian".
Spirituality is a tool to befool others. Civilizations exist to establish control over land, cattle and resources so that people of that particular civilization have better chance of survival over other people.
@@Robert399 THE "VEDIC". A BUDDY told me that I'm actually an Aries under the ancient Vedic calendar, NOT a Taurus. and I think he's right. look at India today: largely "vegan", tolerance on a whole different level compared to almost any other area of the world. It FITS.
Power disparities don't contradict egalitarian. The point here is comparison, the level of equality was much higher. Of course people can't be literally equal, the word "egalitarian" has more meaning than that
They could have had huge water burials, that you won't see anything about today. Also kind of makes sense if you live along a big river that your life depends on.
Infact it could be that IVC had standardised weapons and tools as one giving them the flexibility to farm when peaceful and then fight when under an invasion. This is also not surprising considering that the bricks dimensions , the width of the roads and the cities all are standardised in indus valley civilisation
@@memeboi6017 that i doubt i think the standardization might be due to lack of sophistication . Like lets say u had to smelt bronze and make it some shape, u would use the same schematic rock to let it cool in.
Actually that region was probably a special economic zone kind of thing because of very high manufacturing activities and Indus was trading with everyone
it was where rich traders lived to trade with people beyond indus, from the looks of the non violent nature of the civilization they were most likely into trade.
although I had always heard about the Indus Valley civilization, I would never have expended the energy it took you to research, compile, and summarize the salient points and controversies in such an agreeable form. Thank you for making this content
I have anxiety and insomnia and sometimes your videos help me drop off. Your voice is so calm and the content is so interesting but somehow helps me relax enough to drop off. Hope you won't take this the wrong way as I love a lot of your videos especially the ones on human evolution.
Regarding the obscurity of the Indus valley civilization: ever since I learned of it a few decades ago, it's definitely one of the ancient cultures on my top 10 list for visiting once I get my time machine, multiple video cameras, and large numbers of both storage devices and charged batteries. richard -- "I saw that." - Karma
Modern society requires to uphold the idea that we can only function in exploitative relationships to prevent resistance against its fundamentals. Not saying Indus valley was certainly egalitarian, but there are more examples of egalitarian societies in history and currently. I must admit they're usually smaller size than hierarchical empires, but can still be in the millions.
@@TheB657 I mean.. I like your sarcasm, but praising Europe or 'the West' in general is completely the opposite of what I was trying to say, not sure how you got that from my comment.
@@KarlSnarks Oh sorry, must have meant it for another comment not yours. Pardon me. Seems my comment got posted here or may be I took your comment for decreasing the value of the ancient Saraswati civilization - not sure why I typed it but it was a few days ago. Deleted it 👍 Thanks for clarifying and my apologies.
"Coward of the county" is a Kenny Rogers song about a guy that was told by his father to never get into fights. He avoided fights so much that they called him "Yello", a euphemism for coward. He loved a girl and the guys in town knew this. Brothers from one family graped her. "Yellow" met the in the bar, locked the door, then beat the crappie out of them. Sometimes peaceful people must go to war.
Well, they were trying to figure stuff out for the very first time. I can imagine someone standing in front of an assembly and shouting "I think we can all agree that Rule by Children did not work and was a bad idea to beginn with"
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence". Maybe the Harapans conceptualized society in such a different way that none of their contemporaries even knew how to describe them, and since we can't decipher their writing, we have nothing to go off. Or, re: option 4 at 24:11, maybe what we think of as entire towns were just huge complexes for the ruling elite and their servants/guards. Rather than build up like pyramids, they chose to build out for some reason, and have many little buildings where anyone could poop in luxury as they pleased. Much more productive use of resources IMO. Anyway, great topic, been looking forward to this one for a while!
How though it proven they didn't have sword or any human killing weapon. And there was no clear sign of disparity as everyone house infrastructure is similar and raised place is used keep the food and product safe from environment
Archaeologists can tell how regularly houses were used, so that'd be difficult. Also 50,000 is a lot of houses to poop in. Either way, IVC raises more questions than answers.
I'm doing a paper on the Indus Civilization and I cannot tell you how helpful this video is...especially all your sources! Thank you so much for all your work 😭🙏🏼
Those stamps were obviously „hi, my name is...“ stickers used for their conferences. The unicorns are the trainees while the horned elephant is a CEO. And they were not peaceful - just passive aggressive.
Now you have made me think of those stamps as tokens used for passive aggressive communication in that cultural. Like some ancient form disstrack or something.
I really hope, we, as a people, would be able to actually achieve that state. Egalitarian societies. People helping each other, because they respect each other, not just to exploit them. A little like Kant described it in his discussion about the moral.
Since this video is very new I'll drop this info for all you keen seekers out there: The Indus Valley Script is one of the only Scripts to not have been deciphered. What's even stranger? The Script has many similarities with another undeciphered Script: The Easter Island Script. The resemblance is so uncanny that you'd think its the same script but in a cruder, more archaic form. Mind, one is at the western fringes of the Indian subcontinent, while the other is literally in the middle of nowhere, with South America and Antarctica being the closest landmasses. Hope this info fuels your curiosity and ultimately aids in the deciphering of the scripts. Cheers.
Indus Valley had sailing culture - several maritime towns in what is now Gujerat. And they had sailed all over the west coast of India to Maldives and Sri Lanka by 2000 BC, making contact with austronesians from Sumatra & Java, and so on .
Another fact is that the capital of pakistan, islamabad , is designed on the same symetric design that the city of mohenjo daro is based on. if you see both the ruins and the capital from sky view,you can see the designs
I can’t stress enough how important this channel and these videos are. To put it simply, I spend all my reading time dedicated to East Asian history and I don’t have the extra hours required to dig into up to date research on things like harrapa or human evolution.
Hey Stefan, You have made a wonderful video. It is indeed quite quixotic to think that such a large civilization came about without wars when we know quite clearly that war has been a feature of human civilization forever. One interesting thing you may have wished to add on this subject - there is a text of Akkadian emperor Rimus, son of Sargon the Akkad, where he claims that he defeated a combined force of his enemies killing more than 16,000 of them and captured Elam (SW Iran). Among the enemy forces were those of Marhasi (Jiroft, Eastern Iran) & Meluhha. Meluhha in Mesopotamian texts was the Indus or Harappan civilization. "Rimuš, the king of the world, in battle over Abalgamash, king of Parahshum, was victorious. And Zahara[8] and Elam and Gupin and Meluḫḫa within Paraḫšum assembled for battle, but he (Rimush) was victorious and struck down 16,212 men and took 4,216 captives. Further, he captured Ehmahsini, King of Elam, and all the nobles of Elam. Further he captured Sidaga'u the general of Paraḫšum and Sargapi, general of Zahara, in between the cities of Awan and Susa, by the "Middle River". Further a burial mound at the site of the town he heaped up over them. Furthermore, the foundations of Paraḫšum from the country of Elam he tore out, and so Rimuš, king of the world, rules Elam, (as) the god Enlil had shown..." en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalgamash So quite clearly, the Harappans not only fought wars but they were capable enough to send their warriors as far west as western Iran.
Don’t you have like a brand new baby at home or something? And yet we still get a 26 minute video? I’m simultaneously impressed, excited to watch this, yet concerned that you forgot about your child and they’re just chilling on a pile of books somewhere in a back room.
Hi Stefan! I loved your video and your humorous presentation. I am from Bengal in Eastern India. It's possible that the Harappan people cremated their dead or fed the bodies to the birds like the Iranians and only in rare cases they were buried. The rulers could be sannyasis or priests who lived a simple life believing in renunciation as in Plato's Utopia.
It isn't impossible I guess, I know some have made similar claims about Neolithic European cultures, but I think people should avoid seeing what they want to see in Prehistoric civilizations. For the most part even with advances in archeology and genetics, I'm just not sure if we have enough evidence to say for sure.
Way too much politics in archeology, Let’s not forget the “first human on Britain” controversy, where they decided to make the person black with blue eyes. And when questioned said well actually we don’t have enough genetic information to describe skin colour. But we can say they had blue eyes.....something that is very hard to have if you have higher amounts of Menalin. They literally came out and said they did it to show that there have always been black people in Britain, like wtf why did you have to lie about history now you look ridiculous.
@@James-sk4db I believe Western Hunter Gatherers had probably had darker skin and blue eyes, maybe they had a high vitamin D content diet and thus there was less selection pressure for pale skin? There are people in north Africa who have that phenotype today, if you count light brown/olive skin as dark. But yeah, describing them as 'black' is pretty ridiculous. This is another reason why I prefer to read the original research whenever I can, rather than the reporting on it.
@@James-sk4db Geneticist David Reich did claim that Eurasian peoples may have inherited genes for skin and hair composition from Neanderthals, I won't pretend to know enough about genetics to say exactly what that means though.
It’s also fully possible that seeing what you want to see is expressed through believing that all societies must have been like our own in terms of hierarchical structures.
When people loot, they usually go for the good stuff - the bling, the shiny, the stuff that’s worth $$. With so many sites showing signs of mass burning, it seems plausible that they were invaded and looted, leaving behind the common items that we find today as artifacts. But honestly idfk, just my initial thoughts.
Maybe it was the Detroit of it's time. It grow too big to be sustainable for it's time or some other reason. People packed up their stuff and moved somewhere else. Whatever they couldn't pick up,they simple left behind or burned.
The main source of their water dried away in 1900 BC. It is now a days a small river called ghaggar-harkara as most IVC sites are located on this dried river.
This was really interesting! It is somewhat reminiscent of the egalitarian-or-hierarchal debate over the Chaco Canyon ruins in New Mexico, USA, (AD 1000) they were long claimed to be peaceful and egalitarian until that was finally rejected in the 1990's by some due to actual evidence of oligarchy and violence. Now there is actually mRNA evidence of monarchy there at Pueblo Bonito. Pueblo Bonito itself was long spoken of as a giant apartment building but it's probably a giant palace full of giant storage bins. What were once considered temples (kivas) in Chaco are now seen as the really nice upper-class homes, vs. the hovels where the working class lived on the other side of the canyon. See Steven Lekson and Christy Turner.
I am amazed to find these days that this civilisation is even known of in general. When I was a lad in the Fifties my school had a Radical headmaster. Mr. Fuller had us doing Yoga, and I learned from him then the marvels of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. It just goes to show what a formative influence an educator can have. I remain aware of breath control to this day.
@@IllBeaAround This is true. However, whatever is taught tends to be mostly taught from a western perspective in most western schools. You would naturally expect this, but it would be good if there was a broader range of global historical coverage from many different perspectives across the world. I agree all history seems to be greatly undertaught at school - although, I am not a humanities student, but a STEM student who has done a few history classes. So I cannot make any concrete judgement on the matter due to minimal experience. However, even in STEM studies things are/were undertaught at high-school equivalent level. Fortunately, we have the internet to explore our interests beyond syllabuses.
@@IllBeaAround Idk, some schools in other western countries also teach the histories of some of their largest minority groups too. American schools usually focus on the history of Europe and America. This is alright I guess, but a lot of Americans have to find this type of stuff on their own since most aren't college educated. And it does lead to a lot of cultural ignorance when they meet or hear about cultures other than what they are used too.
violence is part of every society but careful attention should be paid to whether or not the violence was INSTITUTIONALIZED into the society and how. Very interesting video and I've just discovered this channel and it's really great. Loving this video and imagining a society where social distinction may exist but the privileged don't force everyone else to live like animals and fight each other for necessities like shelter and medicine.
City walls, fortifications and bastions are really not indicators of how violent the people living in the city were, but more on how violent people on the outside were. Being just defensive and cautious is not the same as inclining towards violence. The same can be said about weapons, if the weapons were made as a precaution or as defence.
parttime soldiers makes complete sense. In medieval India, a lot of Indian peasantry was involved in parttime soldiering. India was awash with muskets and swords.
Maybe they had a general levy or conscription, and/or didn't put much glory or importance into soldiering. Strong defences and weapons, though, could mean that they were still very peaceful, in the sense that they didn't tend to attack their neighbours, but acted purely defensively. That could explain the massive fall of many cities, perhaps due to an invading force that took advantage of a militarily inferior Harappan?
That is the default state for almost all of human history, everywhere. Europe, Asia, Americas. Africa. It took a very long time for professional standing armies to become the norm.
Thank you, we need more people to look at history this way. Too many people read older interpretations and then pass that on as fact. Loved this topic. As an Indian it is funny to see that some of the indus valley things we still continue to do. For e.g our village houses still follow broadly the same structure, same design for floor tiles, same design for pottery, same symbols used to decorate patios. Yet, no one seems to make an attempt to link it to Indian traditions or texts.
@Lucas De Araújo Marques The thumbnail for this video says "disieng sthmmtspisg utthrid" in an unholy abomination of mixed Cyrillic, Greek and Latin letters
In early Minoan culture there were what looked like gold broad axes, namely a double curved blade on each side. It turns out they were sculptures of the moon and used for ritual purposes depicting the moon, not to chop up people.
I'm so glad you covered this! The Indus Valley Civilization has been a huge curiosity for myself as well. As usual, you did a wonderful job of covering it and illuminating the interesting questions about the Indus Valley Civilization. Thank you!
Another fact is that the capital of pakistan, islamabad , is designed on the same symetric design that the city of mohenjo daro is based on. if you see both the ruins and the capital from sky view
When I saw the thumbnail I really didn't think it'd be on IVC lol 😂 I bought Possehl's book recently but haven't read it yet! I have a keen interest in India, it started with Indian cinema then led to Indian culture and history. Indian culture is truly unique, whether it's the philosophies, spiritualities, arts... You can't imagine it if you haven't delved into it. Many things originate from India and people aren't aware of it. Possibly even all non African ancestors can be traced back to the subcontinent about 60k ya post bottleneck event... So I'm inclined to believe that IVC was also a truly unique and different civilization. Not a utopia, not totally peaceful or egalitarian, but in a realistic way just much better at maintaining/valuing peace and equality than others civilizations 🤷♀️
@@thespatulaa India was not invented in 1947. Pakistan was _carved out of India_ in 1947. The East India Company was created in 1600. Herodotus as far back as the 5th century BC wrote about India, and considered it one country with many languages. Modern genetics show how cohesive the Indian population is, and Pakistani DNA is no different. Please don't bother me again with nonsense.
It tells a lot about our human condition that while most people in the world would like to live in a peaceful society with a fair distribution of wealth, we rarely find traces of what might be such a society, and when we do, we cannot but get sceptical and look for evidence that it was not.
@Pony Boy With an automatic or semi-automatic rifle, you can shoot several shots without needing to reload. With a hunting rifle, at least of the type common in Sweden, you can only shoot two shots and then it takes 30-60 seconds to reload.
@Pony Boy I am not offended. ^^ We do in fact have a law on the freedom of expression. The four acts that build up our constitution are, 1) the Act of Government, 2) the Act of Succession, 3) the Act of Freedom of the Press, 4) the Law on the Freedom of Expression.
Are you one of the brony elite of the Indus Valley, come to save us from hierarchy and return us to a culture of moderate primitive violence? Hail the seal-bearer :)
Do the Cuctenti-Trypillia culture next. They have the same mystique of being "peacefull and egalitarian" while having cities comparable in size to Uruk. Also previously thought of as being without hierarchy, but in the last few decades found out to have more and more complex social structures.
@@Свободадляроссии - To begin with all hunter-gatherer societies, by definition (and reality). Said that, the concept is not that there is zero hierarchy, in any complex society managerial posts need to be in the hands of someone, even if on non-permanent elective or random choice basis, but if such managerial positions don't cause any significant change in socio-economic status but the manager keeps being one member more of the community, then we also talk of non-hierarchical societies. IVC or Cucuteni may have been that kind of societies: complex but also democratic and socialist.
IMHO the 15:53 says it all. The fact that they had invested their time and effort into extensive public works like baths, toilets, and sewer systems while their counterparts in Egypt and Mesopotamia mostly invested their resources into luxury for the elites while most people lived in mud huts is quite remarkable. Really reminds me about Russia. In the 19th century, most of our people lived in wooden houses with no water or any other amenities whatsoever, while our elites built luxurious palaces. In the 20th century (in the Soviet period, specifically), we mostly got rid of the old elites and their ideology and in just a few decades of a planned economy, provided tens and even hundreds of millions of people with affordable (albeit quite blocky) housing with all the amenities and excellent public transportation and schooling infrastructures. In the 21st century, we are kinda returning to the ''olden'' ways again, with scary results for normal people. The elites lead more and more luxurious lives while the normal people get poorer and poorer. By the way, just because the society strives to be egalitarian, that doesn't mean there should be no *hierarchies*. There just should not be any unnecessary and unjust hierarchies. For example, if a person knows architecture, such a person should be able to be on top of the hierarchy of the building process and get bigger a reward for doing hir or her job than his or her less-educated counterpart would. That situation with an architect would be an example of a just hierarchy. An example of an unjust hierarchy would be a rich person's son or daughter who inherited the real estate, the money, or even the job position only on the basis of their blood relation.
'we mostly got rid of the old elites and their ideology and in just a few decades of a planned economy, provided tens and even hundreds of millions of people with affordable (albeit quite blocky) housing with all the amenities and excellent public transportation and schooling infrastructures.' You missed out the murder of millions of kulaks, the forced labor which killed hundreds of thousands and the gulag system. But yeah, public transport.
@@AndrewLale you're going off on a tangent not relevant to what they're talking about, it's about infrastructure and wealth distribution, and besides that you say it like romanov russia had no widespread loss of life, food shortages or political issues
Lol wut. Give me a comparison of what the Soviet Union achieved with what other countries with similar conditions like Finland achieved. Give me a comparison of what North Korea achieved with what South Korea achieved. Give me a comparison of what China achieved with what Taiwan and Southeast Asia achieved. I refuse to sell my freedom and rights to the government. As simple as that.
@@kakalimukherjee3297 Both Taiwan and South Korea were Fascist dictatorships, under military rule, until pretty recently .Them becoming democratic only happened after years of struggle. In reference to South East Asia, which you also mentioned, Thailand was an autocratic monarchy, until comparatively recently, the US supported government of Vietnam was, again, a military dictatorship, Indonesia was a military dictatorship that liquidated around 500,000 political opponents and put a further 1 million into concentration camps, Timor Leste had about a third of it's population genocided by Indonesia, the Phillipines was another dictatorship, ditto for Burma. All of them had long periods of struggle to establish some level of equity for their people and in the case of Indonesia, the Phillipines, (where there is an elective dictatorship effectively, again ditto for Burma), there's still a lot of work to be done. Your counter examples don't really work for you in the way that you imagine they do.
@@adamsmith7058 the military dictatorships in Southeast Asia and Chile did not ruin those countries' demographics, religion and economies as in Eastern Europe or Cuba. These countries did not achieve equity with communism, but with the free market. Communism has achieved nothing, but death, destruction, and misery.
I really enjoyed the is video. As a retired teacher in the US, I taught “world history” which in the USA means briefly condense all history outside of Europe into a few chapters here and there (ex: one chapter for all of China’s known history up until colonialism). The four major river valley civilizations are all covered in one section of one chapter. There is much more focus on the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile civilizations as their histories most directly impact the US worldview of American exceptionalism ( embarrassing 😳). So, I really never took the initiative to study more on my own even though the rise of civilization is one of the most fascinating areas of contemplation for me, especially as a pagan, since “civilization” as it developed in the Middle East eventually lead to the Christian Church…. And I think you see where I’m going here. I really respect how researched your videos are and that all sources are available for those of us who want to explore more.
Yeah, it's weirdly disturbing each time I see something like that 😆 I'm especially sorry for A. Cyrillic Д is D and A is written like.. А. My mind gets so confused when I try to redd thdt 😆
In Srimad Bhagavatam, it talks about people of Dwaraka carried special seals for identity. These seals are found in Dwaraka today are similar to the Indus Valley seals.
Regarding Unicorn, please see pictures of Thar Desert Oxen. You will note that horns of some oxen were perfectly semetrical when viewed sideways. So the artisan carved only one horn.
12:51@ Stefan Milo. Harappan people were buried with weapons. In a recent discovery of Sinauli, India, archeologists discovered some tombs from Indus Valley Civilization period where people were buried with weapons and even chariots.
Imagine going back in time and you just see all the Harappans vibing. They're like "Want a house, bro? They're free, just make sure you have enough pots to pay your taxes or you won't be buried when you die! :) "
For the 88 graves conundrum, it is possible that only the highly ranked officials, nobles or royalty were buried and the common people cremated their dead. Cremation was and still is the preferred ritual for the dead in Hinduism, something that has been established since the Vedic period, which is the civilization that emerged after the had Harappans collapsed.
So, I am from Pakistan, the sites of Indus Valley civilization esp Mohenjo-daro are five hours drive from my home. They digs are so fascinating. I hope one day they decipher the script.
One reason for the center ridge on more sophisticated edged weapons (which is also, paradoxically, the reason for a runnel on a sword) is that it greatly strengthens with minimal additional weight. You quote a scholar pointing out that Harappan blades would have simply folded over in use -- worse than useless in a fight. So the best evidenced inference is that the Harappans did not have professional blade makers. If they DID, their blades would have been stronger and more durable. The importance of the center to a forged blade was not a new technology; it was widely known -- yet not, evidently, to the Harappans.
maybe they used the weakness to their advantage, similar to the pilum of the Romans. It was designed to bend in the shields of their enemies and generally be a one use missle, so they couldn't throw them back.
I feel like the number of pots would make more sense as something left for the dead. I'm not sure whether this is common in other countries, but it is common in the US to leave flowers on the grave of a loved one. Maybe loved ones left pots in the Indus Valley Civilization?
Actually even to this day most Indian Upper classes get cremated upon death. If Indus valley was proto Hindu - they would not be leaving many burials . And the fire and burning signs maybe mass cremations from a pandemic of small pox or measles or plague from the past.
Given the scarcity of burials, relatively consistent history of alternative funereal disposals (sky burials, cremation, etc.,) and the long held tradition of reincarnation, I think the gravesites were the worst criminals and the number of pots indicated the seriousness of their crimes.
@Rip and tear! Guts It's not a theory just a possible explanation for the lack of burial remains. There is not enough evidence to formulate any theory. It is also possible that some portion of the population burnt their dead but others practised burial. Or the burials could have been sacrifices. The possibilities are endless.
I think we are interpreting the past based on our contemporary ideas and see what we are looking for... at least to a degree. I find it fashinating that there where so many bronze age civilizations and even older.. there must be a lot left to find before we can u derstand
This, we live in a world where hierarchies are so prevalent that it becomes impossible to imagine a world without them. Looking for hierarchies when we could be looking at a different, decentralized system of organization where the fruits of cooperation have to be distributed more equally to keep the system together compared to hierarchial system where more inequality breeds stability.
@@descendedofrigvedicclans2216 i was responding to 'alot left to find' n i made use of gobekli tepe because it had been ignored and assumed to be a 'worthless' hill by previous archaeologists, despite other excavations nearby in earlier decades. In truth, it wouldve been better to suggest how arabian peninsula and sahara desert have been ignored when we KNOW there's been interesting finds. Or, perhaps the 'temple complex' in indonesia where dating has suggested 20k years old n the government shut down excavations. If one does bring in 'civilisation' it depends upon what is determined to be a civilisation is it necessary to have writing to be a civilisation? cities? religion? stationary? MAths? astronomy? etc What denotes a city? in modern terms, a city needs a cathedral, it is not a population thing, at least in uk where im from. How can you have a cathedral before christianity?
@@kimwarburton8490 In modern times in the UK the monarch chooses new cities, it was way back and only during a specific time when you needed a cathedral for a city in the UK. Before christianity there were cities.
@@somniumisdreaming i didnt know that the monarch chooses i shouldve clarified that pre christianity it wouldve been the equivalent of whatever local religion was happening. Like Ur was the 'home' of a babylonian god and had the highest level of their 'clergy' and same for other cities to best of my knowledge. I cannot think of any ancient city that did not have either government and/or high level of religious leader. It is only in modern-day atheist culture that religion is less of a factor i would say
Keep an eye out for 'The Dawn of Everything' coming out later this year, looking at origins of social hierarchies and early egalitarian societies, co written by archeologist David Wengrow and anthropologist David Graeber. Particularly interested in the theory that many early societies may have regularly flipped from hierarchical to egalitarian depending on season and availability of food.
We see that even in recorded history, and it's not entirely consistent which way the events flow. The increasing tyranny and inequality of Rome before it fractured and split and dissolved. The creation of the middle classes following the black death, culminating in the Revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. If one thing is constant it is change
@@McHobotheBobo Yep having now read the book I'm amazed at the fact that its only very recently that we've become stuck with the idea that this is always how its been and how it'll always be. We seem to have lost that ability to imagine what society could be like. We tinker round the edges but real radical change just doesn't seem like an option to many people. "The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently." - David Graeber
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Ok fine I'll change the thumbnail. I'm still throwing some Cyrillic in there though! Just correctly this time.
We did it! We broke the spirit of the man who makes us free educational videos! Yeey!
Alright, I'm brand new here, like "I'm 4 minutes into my first video on this channel, and have read the channel's about section" new, but my interest is already peaked. It's not every day that I find an actual archaeology-focused TH-cam channel that isn't just a bunch of pseudoscience.
Also, am I correct to guess from the flag in the background that you are some flavor of leftist?
Remains of large ICV Sites are found in N.E India ( in U.P. ), leading back to 2500 BCE.
This findings is of 2018 -19.
Can you share more details on this.
As right now very little is available on Internet.
No bollocks here, just that sweet sweet archaeology. I’m pretty left yeah. Not quite Lenin level of left though lol.
Stefan Milo Amazing! It's good to see an actual archaeological channel for once, let alone a left leaning one (I'm not too picky about ideology, if the topics are good, but I'm fairly left-wing myself.) So, anyways, thanks for being here!
Imagine being the leader of your civilization but staying humble and living in the same houses as everyone else, then 5000 years later some guy with a spoon roasts you for only having 70 pots
Why does he hold a spoon? I'm new to this channel lol
@@NimishNadgere it's basically just a running joke, he used to have a small mic that he would clip on to a plastic spoon. It got popular enough that now with a big mic he still has the spoon.
@Niraj Patel wow That's hilarious!
And rightfully so😂🤣
Bronze Age Bernie would be proud to be made fun of.
As an Indian my first instinct is that walls and weapons are needed in this subcontinent for protection against dangerous animals which were abundant. Weapons may have been needed for hunting also.
I have no idea if the civilization fought wars but they had to tackle wild animals for sure and this included rhinos, elephants and wild cats (tigers/lions).
Maybe that aspect deserves recognition in the narrative which otherwise seems presumed.
But in any case thanks for this. Excellent work.
That was my thought just then too. Leopard attacks possibly
@@koobie83 Wild animals depicted on Indus Seals include Tiger, Rhino, Buffalo, Elephant etc. Leopards would not have merited a seal where tigers roamed :) They must have also been there.
they didn't need bastions on their walls for animals. it was definitely for defense against humans
@@sumitsen well the answer is sinauli excavations 🤗
@@sumitsen you think these walled cities which were massive urban centres unlike any other in the world at the time was just a city surrounded by forest? It was most definitely surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmlands and pastures which helped in keeping the city fed. On top of that there must've been a network of roads connecting these cities and all the villages between them. The deep forests where the animals that you mentioned reside, already avoiding human contact, wouldn't be anywhere near those cities. And you need a wall that is literally meters in thickness and has bastions to prevent wild animals? What wild animals are you dealing with? An army of dinosaurs? I don't wish to sound rude and I encourage discussion but how do people even suggest such a thing?
I’m 68 years old now and every time I’ve seen the image of the “priest-king” since I was a kid I wondered how they came to that conclusion if there is no decipherment of the script and no markings on the statue, I’m so glad you’ve brought this issue up. It reminds me of how all anomalous artifacts discovered are , or used to be, claimed as religious for absolutely no good reason.
because in the hindu caste system, the brahmins (priests) are the kings.
@@daniel-cc7bn Yeah and… ? where’s the evidence that this depicts a Brahmin, priest or king? It’s simply a small figure of a man with nicely coiffed beard and hair.
@@daniel-cc7bn actually no, the kings can only be Kshatriyas, Brahmins can only be priests and gurus/acharya. Since Kings need to wage wars or defend their country they need to belong to the warrior caste. There may be some exceptions but this is the general varna system
@@daniel-cc7bn
actually that’s completely wrong, Brahmins could not become Kings they were forbidden
Only Kshatriyas could be Kings
Brahmins could only be advisors, priests, teachers, rishis, etc…
@@daniel-cc7bnfalse
Maybe they built the bastions to bash the water over the head with rocks!
You’re a true scholar cogito!
😂😂😂
So wholesome seeing two of my favourite TH-camrs banter in the comments hahaa
One important factor was the presence of pluming, proto-ventalation, and organized well planned cities. This shows they must have had some kind of bureaucracy. The question is who these ancient bureaucrats answered to. If they answered to the people in some proto-democratic way then it makes sense that the people would invest in such creature comforts that most of us wouldn't get until only 100 or so years ago. But even if they did answer to a monarch or cabal of oligarchs, this shows that any present elite was incentivized to invest resources in public goods and improvement of the general quality of life. There also could have been a combination, where an existing elite was politically balanced in someway by the people or their institutional proxies such as guilds or religious orders. Regardless of the political organization, its fair to say they the people of the bronze age Indus river valley had one of the highest observable qualities of life for anyone living in that era.
Sound like a Dutch thing to do
Before the Mayan language was translated there was a school of thought that they lived in perfect peace and harmony. The inscriptions pretty much killed that idea.
Academics swoon over the ideas of a Utopia. Believing in what is unbelievable, unproveable and improbable, yet they seek it in everything.
To play devil's advocate, the Maya DID live in peace and harmony, unless you weren't Maya.
@@Leon-wz1js I don't think so. Most of the translated Mayan inscription i have read tell about wars between the kings of Mayan Cities, not with Non-Maya Cities.
the "noble savage'
@@Leon-wz1js So basically the Mayan civilization was the OG Nazbol Gang
@@8ahau279 My understanding of the Maya, was there was one core city state, that attacked and assimilated neighboring civilizations, expanding their empire. Now war, or resource raids, was common between city states, but those were assimilated city states, not the core Mayans. I believe the core Mayan city state didn't conflict with itself, which is what I was talking about. Other city states might have been part of the Mayan civilization, but they were not true Mayans.
What I'm getting from this video is that either they were egalitarian, or they had strict hierarchies/a ruling class which functioned so differently from what we're used to seeing that we can't even recognise it as such. Either way, it's cool how unusual it is.
Same as today 😂😂
Imagine working really hard with Bronze Age tools on a big wall to protect your village and being really proud of it, just for a bunch of nerds a few thousand years later to say it couldn’t possibly have been built to keep out enemies
ngl this had me dying
Basically when anyone makes statements based on assumptions i think about what we'll have left behind in 2k years, 10k, 1 million
Putting squarish bastions on a wall that's purely for water control I don't think is a good idea. The resistance of that square shape would help in undermining it.
Or to say a tribe marches around the walls for 7 days playing music and it falls....Jericho
Lmao
@@thhseeking you are so right. The civilization would have understood this and used shapes to move water away. Angles are for waves of mankind.
Or status symbols. They could have been made to keep slaves inside. The Spartans used their walls for this reason.
Fascinating. I see some potential similarities between the Indus Valley Civilisation and The Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture of Ancient Ukraine. Their ‘mega-sites’ are often thought to have been egalitarian without class distinction.
I think that minimal clas distinction is more likely than none. In addition, Stefan's hypothesis about rural elites might have something to it.
Cucuteni is in Romania. Actually, the common ownership of things like forests or ponds was something that carried on even among Romanians in the Middle Ages as the unwritten law of the land.
The ancient Dacians that assimilated that Cucuteni culture were also a predominantly rural society and they didn't build large cities, despite their knowledge of medicine, astronomy, weapon making and a religion that made the acceptance of Christianity easier (a supreme deity, belief in immortality of the soul, belief that life is dominated by suffering and injustice)
@@razvanandreiantonescurogoz4236 I would like to know more about it thank you for mentioning, dear friend.
Also Artenacian small scale Megalithism, associated to bowmen, replacing "priestly" mega-Megalithism in Brittany and West France.
@@kartiktiriya2612 On TH-cam, you can see the Dacian Falx (weapon), you can see Sarmizegetusa, the Dacian capital (with its fortress and sacred zone) - Sarmizegetusa Regia, after which the Romans built Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa.
There is also a documentary about Zalmoxis, produced by the journalist and writer Daniel Roxin and posted on TH-cam.
Also, for a broader overview of the Thracians, of which Dacians were the northern branch, you can watch the documentary "The Thracians, a Hidden History"
I am from central area of india called vidharbha when I saw the teracota toy of Indus velly civilization I realised I used play with same shape of teracota toy , even we have a festival named pola where we make bull and chariot of teracota and go each house for gift and toffies . Even our jewelry also look very similar to indius velly civilization .
We have the same terracotta toys in rural Bengal and almost the same festivals . We are all connected 💙
After the collapse of IVC, the population moved to the north east and south.
We don't see them retaining the idea of infrastructure but they must have retained the idea of poetry and toy-making. They were used in trade.
the figures remained, even if ayrans od modern india arrived 300 years later after IVC collapsed
That’s really cool, thank you for sharing these details!
After collapse of IVC. Various other civilization came to existence in India. One such was in deccan that was Daimabad copper ware civilization in current Aurangabad, MH. This site has bronze toys similar to that of mature IVC time.
The Indus valley civilization is most underrated civilization in the world.
The structured town plan with multistory buildings and proper drainage plan and street plan comparable to 18th century cities is uncomparable to any other 4000 years ago.
It was a proper urban civilization,even Egypt with its massive pyramids was nowhere close to Indus valley civilization.
Egypt is not only about Pyramids, see this is why you just like your fellow people are ignorant.
The great bath of Mohenjodaro is also comparable to that of Imperial Rome.
Yep
Pakistan not doing justice to this ancient civilisation. Heard people from nearby villages stealing those bricks..
It is nice to see that one civilization spent its energy on housing its populace. Maybe one day Australia will try.
I wish it would've continued into the modern times in India
Back then, housing had far less requirements and far more space.
In your dreams.
Australians and Canadians aways like to bring up their domestic issues into the picture as if the world cares. Give it a rest.
@@ColtraneTaylor fun fact; you can actually talk about whatever you want
There could actually be only 88 burials at one site because those buried were foreigners who happened to die in the city, for whom burial was their custom. The natives may have been very thoroughly cremated.
Oooh interesting possibility for a survivorship sampling bias
Probable. Because current Induism from that civilization retains the same aspect when it comes to the dead.
@@ViksterG ty, yes! i was pretty sure it was
This is the longest, most interesting "eh maybe" I've ever heard
Instead of Ing-soc it can be Ind-soc
(1984)
This is also the most well backed up "eh maybe" I have seen.
@Rahul the linguistic evidence is overwhelming
Haplogroup and Rh too
@Rahul continuity is not stability. The dynamic of the caste system isn't even what it was in precolonial India.
The bronze age version, if it had yet developed, would likely be unrecognizable
I love the fact that he not only holds a microphone....but also goes through the trouble of holding the spoon. That is dedication. 🥄
spoon/fork = spork
spoon/mike = spike (?)
... love his eccentricity!
@@robinfox9667 I think the word for this new invention would be microspoon.
@@tantibusdraws6165 lol... er, how about: microsphoone?
It's a marker of his hierarchical position within his civilisation. He's one of them spoonies, see.
Why, indeed, the spoon? I saw another video by him with a small clip-on microphone (the kind you clip on to your shirt) attached to the spoon. Just his quirky tradition I guess.
the 18m thick wall is definitely built for another purpose, with defense just a bonus. 18m is much thicker than a medieval castle wall, and can withstand cannon shots before they even have siege weapons.
Also, lacking a ruler whose ambition is to boss around other rulers could reduce the number of wars they fought (among each other), given how many wars in history can be boiled down to "king A wants more stuff from king B"
Are you sure the Indus Valley Civilization's enemies had no cannons??
That’s significantly smaller than the walls of Uruk, Babylon and Nineveh. A mudbrick wall can be pulled apart with basic tools (siege hooks), unlike a stone wall, so it needs to be much thicker to give defenders time to respond.
A peaceful civilization would still need walls and weapons for defence, especially when surrounded by violent neighbors
I was thinking exactly the same. Walls don't tell how violent are you, they tell how violent are your neighbours.
Also from wild animals. you know it was pre historic india with lot of tigers, lions, cheetas, elephants, rhinos etc.
@@dheera8889 Sure, but all you'd need for wild animals is a simple wooden palisade, not intricate gatehouses, towers and thick stone walls.
@@cacamilis8477 first of all they didn't have stone walls but mudbrick walls. also their walls are not strong enough for invading armies. At best these wall are for economic control by authorities or saving towns from floods. IVC had a material culture with no more than a 5% of urban population of the total, there can be thieves and dacoits in every material culture, walls could be used for saving urban clusters from thieves. By no means these wall strong enough to protect from armies. I don't know who told you there was violent neighbors, was these neighbors from maharashtra or rajasthan or afghanistan or himachal or kashmir or UP or Iran or central Asia, as it was opened to be attacked from any side. Was these attackers ancient Tamils or Ancient Tibetan or someone else?
@@dheera8889 How do you know mudbrick walls would not have been strong enough? After all theyve survived for millenia. How do you know which percentage of IVC were urban compared to rural, and why does that matter?
I have no idea whether they had a violent neighbouring civilisation, nomadic horde or migrating people, or consecutive bandits, let alone where they came from. It might explain why so many IVC cities were burned down relatively soon after each other though.
This is the good stuff right here
Coming from you, that says a lot
He’s a god damn commie
What Would Darwin Say?
@@Witnessmoo Aryans from Eurasia fixed that Indus Valley Civilization
Chariots, hail!
Sunwheels, hail!
@@Witnessmoo and that matters because...
War and hierarchy has been a staple of human civilization for a very long time, but cooperation and sharing are even older. We wouldn't have the numbers to fight wars if we didn't grow, and we can't grow without sharing and cooperating.
Maybe we should think about our own conception of expressing hierarchy. Of course, it is most common to see, especially in Antiquity, hierarchy expressed in material remains -pyramids, for example-, but this society may have developped hierarchy in other ways: such as social or economic relations that didn't create any material remains
Very good point
@@StefanMilo thank you, Stefan! Really appreciate it!
Could also simply be a spiritual afterlife, so no need to give gramps a lot of stuff with him and the pots had a different meaning, rather than being an expression of hierarchy, like number of family members?
@@aitorboadabenito1362 throwing a potential example, the sumptuary laws of the middles ages restricting by class the cloth people could wear and the colours of dye they could use. Although this didn't necessarily collate to wealth- rich merchants in France were banned from wearing blue (because it had traditionally been expensive) but instead wore a hideously vibrant orange that was imported from the far east and was actually much more expensive. That sort of thing wouldn't have shown up in the archaeological record.
@@daveharrison4697 very good point: maybe we should think that they, indeed, had mortuary practices that produced material remains. They simply weren't preserved. Thanks, Dave!
It pisses me off royally that there are languages out there that are effectively lost to us today.
Same! So many secrets that could tell us so much, just sitting there catching dust and being pretty. Honestly, this is also a good reason for the need to preserve indigenous languages of colonized lands, and local dialects of prevalent languages.
not totally lost fs. It's descendant languages are being used
@@KarlSnarksfrom middle East there are a lot of civilization born but only Indus far away from them there is no language translation
Fascinating, just fascinating. When I was a kid, we took a school trip to Lothal which has the archaeological remains of a Harappa Town. I remember being told about their water management and being shown some of the structures believed do have been used to store water along with some water ways, also saw those public baths. Though we saw the sight from afar, a friend of mine managed to fine a human tooth and all of us were so fascinated like we had made a discovery haha. I believe the tooth was taken by a person working at the museum nearby.
They had a great drainage system which still works
Me: Boy howdy he uploaded!
Stefan: YOU are poor.
And Stephen's a bit business
ahahahaha
Indus Elite: "I've been buried with 70 pots, I'm incredibly rich."
Chinese Emperor: "Slacker."
I thought since the pots look more like cups, perhaps it were the number of people who attended these funerals, and perhaps only people were buried that were foreign workers or perhaps town-mayors that died during office, the normal people were probably burned and put in the river.
Egyptian Pharaoh: "how adorable 😂🤣"
Let’s be fair, there wasn’t a Chinese empire until a thousand year after the collapse of Indus Valley civilization. Artifacts of the Chinese cultures from the times of Indus Valley civilization were also simple pots and jade tools, and the direct ancestor of the proper Chinese culture started after 12th century bc, nearly half a millennium after the Aryan conquest of India.
@@kyriakos232 the Aryan invasion theory has been debunked throughout and you really need to stop using it. There was mostly likely only a migration or mixing. There was no conquest AT ALL.
It's a bogus theory that was used by British colonizers to exacerbate the caste divide in India during the 19th century.
@@kanjuicy585 indeed, Dravidian civilization in Indus Valley already collapsed before Aryan arrived, and despite gradual intermingle of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan resulting a culturally Indo-Aryan dominated north India, this wasn’t the result of a single significant event that can be described as a conquest.
But old habits die hard, sorry, I would try to use more accurate description next time.
There were two burial styles mentioned in Rig Ved; one is the burial in the ground, and the other is with Fire God ( cremation ). That can be why you find a mismatch between no. of graves and population size.
Indus is prevedic
@@vemmanr there's no proof for it, only speculations.
We don't even know the origin time of the rig ved or it's predecessors so you can't say for sure which one is older or if the IVC were the successors of rig vedic people themselves.
@@esmeelin5435Not really we know the people in Harappan civilisation did not follow rig veda and Rig Veda came from Iran much later after the Harrapan civilisation was disbanded
Infact Look it up we have artworks and pot isotoped showing beef consumption at a very high level in IVC. They also dont have any Yagya places or structures we usually do associate with Vedic gods
@@whatthehell4682Beef was popular in aryans of that time as well. So popular that it was ceromonially consumed during festival. Aryans did not come from iran they came from the central asian steppe. They did not intermix with bmac which suggests that they did not come from iran. Genetic tests in swat valley proves it
@@whatthehell4682😂lol if vedas came from iran then why their own avesta book dont have mention about sarasvati river
Hello , thanks for your video . I'm Curator and collection incharge of Indus Valley Civilization in National Museum New Delhi. Your explanation is really easy to understand and nicely narrated, thank you.
Question : is there still a flow of artifacts, given that most of the civilization is presumably no longer accessible to Indian archeologists?
@@uddyalokbangabash7008 Yes, from Gujarat, Haryana to Punjab region.
I'm pretty sure as an Indian they had a deity, a early version of SHIVA or proto - Shiva. The seals found in the Indus Valley can be seen depicting a being sitting in a certain posture which is the exact replica of how Shiva is depicted today, can't just be a coincidence. Show a glimpse of that seal to people who have no clue about history & the Indus Valley civilization in India, they'll instantly say SHIVA.
The Vedic pantheon was imported later by the so-called “Aryans”. The deities of the IVC were more likely precursors of pre-Vedic deities.
@@menorcaventura3442 yes Shiva I'm DEAD sure is a IVC diety nothing to do with the indo European migrants. That famous seal which was found depicts a posture of a being so similar to the depiction of Shiva, it simply cannot be a coincidence.
@@menorcaventura3442 AMT is debated a lot. Don't take it as a fact. Acc to Dr. BB Lal the most famous archaeologist of independent India, there was a cultural continuity from IVC.
@Vishwas Singh so if aryans "invaded", why would they prefer having their gods dark skinned (with respect to Dravidian population if that's what you were trying to imply), wouldn't they favor their fair skin gods? People who invade dont care about the culture of the people they've won over -_-
Indo-iranian makes sense, because indian civilisation has covered those regions. But indo Europeans is just... eh... there are things that just doesn't make any sense.
@@menorcaventura3442 damn people still believe in this😂😂 I thought max Muller theory died in this thread I can see people not knowing about it another European agenda taken by nazi and people still believing it lol🤷♂️🤦
Maybe 70 pots in a grave could mean he/she had 70 friends and family members who brought something to use in the afterlife, where the other person with 30, only had 30 friends/family member who brought gifts to the departed. Kind of like somebody now days slipping something in the coffin to be buried with them. Just thinking, what would I do?
Good point!
I like how you still have the spoon
It doesn't serve any practical purpose.
It's probably evidence of a mysterious, previously unknown cult.
I was thinking why not a spork 😆
It's ceremonial.
Tradition must be preserved
Took me 12 and a half minutes to notice 😂
I just emailed this to myself scheduled a year from now.
As a sociologist and soon to be economist, you convinced me that fallen civilizations are worth researching.
Thanks!
It's been a year.
Like 2 almost. How's things?
Pushing another, How'd it turn out?
The people demand answers
Why would you even wait a year with this
Indus Valley civilization is the home of my ancestors. Great video Love from Sindh Pakistan🇵🇰
"Was [insert society] a utopia?"
> The answer is always no.
One man's utopia is another man's dystopia. For example, our dystopia is, possibly, a liberal utopia.
Indus Valley civ and early ancient Knossos come damn near close.
@@du2x467 isn't a utopia by definition a perfect and sustainable political organisation? I would think that a utopia wouldn't have a risk of people revolting
@@du2x467 I wish. An actual liberal utopia needs less presence of a governmental state.
I disagree about liberal utopia requiring less government.
Liberalism needs a government, a strongman type to enforce liberal values.
Liberalism is sometimes depicted in the top right of the political compass for a reason.
I like how you present the debate and the different avenues of thought before giving your opinion, but even then you leave it up for debate. In truth, a large part of what we "know" is conjecture, some better than others. I just like your approach of presenting it as what we think we know. But it is so fascinating even tho we can't be totally sure about most of it.
@Something Mildly Homophobic I agree.
@Something Mildly Homophobic I'm just curious, why do you think someting possibly having religious significance a cop out? There have been many relitions through out history and it did indeed have much significance along the way. Religion has been used as a tool by those in power for thousands of years. And it was and is a source of comfort for many. What they believe ore believed doesn't make it true or not true, but it has indeed been a powerful force for a very long time both for those in power and for those who felt downtroden as well.
@@BirdYoumans Well, i think it is some king of archaeological joke. When archaeologists find an object and they have no clue what was its function, they slap the label 'probably religious'
Good job you just desribed academia
@@Joostmhw Yeah, but this is youtube. And it is kind of rare to see it be done like this on this platform. Always presenting what they most believe to be the case in history as fact.
For kalibangan burials, it's likely they cremated a lot. As for palace, there's a palace at Mundigak 2500bce, many large pillars are still standing.
“Don’t worry lads this axe is unsocketed!” 😂😂😂
Ah, no problem laddie, you can split someone's head with them as well as the socketed ones. Party time!!! (For certain personalities, not mine I hasten to add)
Plus i just had too many bosh's on the noggin and ain't got a pot to piss in.
This is total speculation but possibly their spirituality (if any) had no use for elaborate burials and monuments and temples. Similarly, their religion/culture/whatever may have placed great value on uniformity or asceticism but still had very clear power disparities. I'm not saying any of this is true, just that there are many alternatives to "they must have been egalitarian".
Spirituality is a tool to befool others.
Civilizations exist to establish control over land, cattle and resources so that people of that particular civilization have better chance of survival over other people.
@name Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
@@Robert399 THE "VEDIC". A BUDDY told me that I'm actually an Aries under the ancient Vedic calendar, NOT a Taurus. and I think he's right. look at India today: largely "vegan", tolerance on a whole different level compared to almost any other area of the world. It FITS.
Power disparities don't contradict egalitarian. The point here is comparison, the level of equality was much higher. Of course people can't be literally equal, the word "egalitarian" has more meaning than that
They could have had huge water burials, that you won't see anything about today. Also kind of makes sense if you live along a big river that your life depends on.
Infact it could be that IVC had standardised weapons and tools as one giving them the flexibility to farm when peaceful and then fight when under an invasion. This is also not surprising considering that the bricks dimensions , the width of the roads and the cities all are standardised in indus valley civilisation
Probably through religious or cultural custom, not administrative decree
@@memeboi6017 that i doubt i think the standardization might be due to lack of sophistication . Like lets say u had to smelt bronze and make it some shape, u would use the same schematic rock to let it cool in.
with all that standardised housing and little record of anything else, i'd make a bold claim:
They were the Holiday Inn of their time.
Actually that region was probably a special economic zone kind of thing because of very high manufacturing activities and Indus was trading with everyone
it was where rich traders lived to trade with people beyond indus, from the looks of the non violent nature of the civilization they were most likely into trade.
although I had always heard about the Indus Valley civilization, I would never have expended the energy it took you to research, compile, and summarize the salient points and controversies in such an agreeable form. Thank you for making this content
I have anxiety and insomnia and sometimes your videos help me drop off. Your voice is so calm and the content is so interesting but somehow helps me relax enough to drop off. Hope you won't take this the wrong way as I love a lot of your videos especially the ones on human evolution.
I 've noticed that too.
Regarding the obscurity of the Indus valley civilization: ever since I learned of it a few decades ago, it's definitely one of the ancient cultures on my top 10 list for visiting once I get my time machine, multiple video cameras, and large numbers of both storage devices and charged batteries.
richard
--
"I saw that."
- Karma
I would also recommend a small solar panel
Be sure to bring some peaceful kitchen utensils.
The idea that modern people resist the most is that some humans might have once lived ethically.
Modern society requires to uphold the idea that we can only function in exploitative relationships to prevent resistance against its fundamentals. Not saying Indus valley was certainly egalitarian, but there are more examples of egalitarian societies in history and currently. I must admit they're usually smaller size than hierarchical empires, but can still be in the millions.
Exactly and that irks them ! That is literally their ire !
@@TheB657 I mean.. I like your sarcasm, but praising Europe or 'the West' in general is completely the opposite of what I was trying to say, not sure how you got that from my comment.
@@KarlSnarks Oh sorry, must have meant it for another comment not yours. Pardon me. Seems my comment got posted here or may be I took your comment for decreasing the value of the ancient Saraswati civilization - not sure why I typed it but it was a few days ago. Deleted it 👍 Thanks for clarifying and my apologies.
@@TheB657 Ah ok, that can happen, no problem :)
"Coward of the county" is a Kenny Rogers song about a guy that was told by his father to never get into fights.
He avoided fights so much that they called him "Yello", a euphemism for coward.
He loved a girl and the guys in town knew this. Brothers from one family graped her.
"Yellow" met the in the bar, locked the door, then beat the crappie out of them.
Sometimes peaceful people must go to war.
I love early civilizations, such cool society structures.
Well, they were trying to figure stuff out for the very first time. I can imagine someone standing in front of an assembly and shouting "I think we can all agree that Rule by Children did not work and was a bad idea to beginn with"
Yep, simplified laws , that everybody understand !
Then you might also like world building and con-languages
@@rlosable i dunno
Kids by n large are less corrupt with stronger moral compassess than adults imo
@@kimwarburton8490 yes, and very good decision making! You assume corruption is worse than incompetence
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence". Maybe the Harapans conceptualized society in such a different way that none of their contemporaries even knew how to describe them, and since we can't decipher their writing, we have nothing to go off. Or, re: option 4 at 24:11, maybe what we think of as entire towns were just huge complexes for the ruling elite and their servants/guards. Rather than build up like pyramids, they chose to build out for some reason, and have many little buildings where anyone could poop in luxury as they pleased. Much more productive use of resources IMO. Anyway, great topic, been looking forward to this one for a while!
Praveen
Is that quote from some atheist vs theist debate?
How though it proven they didn't have sword or any human killing weapon. And there was no clear sign of disparity as everyone house infrastructure is similar and raised place is used keep the food and product safe from environment
Archaeologists can tell how regularly houses were used, so that'd be difficult. Also 50,000 is a lot of houses to poop in. Either way, IVC raises more questions than answers.
I'm doing a paper on the Indus Civilization and I cannot tell you how helpful this video is...especially all your sources! Thank you so much for all your work 😭🙏🏼
Lol no
What did you publish?
I appreciate the plastic spoon - never forget where you came from
Those stamps were obviously „hi, my name is...“ stickers used for their conferences. The unicorns are the trainees while the horned elephant is a CEO. And they were not peaceful - just passive aggressive.
"I'm afraid I will have to talk with your goat-antelope about this."
Now you have made me think of those stamps as tokens used for passive aggressive communication in that cultural.
Like some ancient form disstrack or something.
Ancient Karen-rappu: "I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR HORNED-ELEPHANT!" XD
I really hope, we, as a people, would be able to actually achieve that state. Egalitarian societies. People helping each other, because they respect each other, not just to exploit them.
A little like Kant described it in his discussion about the moral.
The elements of humour keep me watching. Keep up the great work!
Since this video is very new I'll drop this info for all you keen seekers out there:
The Indus Valley Script is one of the only Scripts to not have been deciphered.
What's even stranger? The Script has many similarities with another undeciphered Script: The Easter Island Script. The resemblance is so uncanny that you'd think its the same script but in a cruder, more archaic form.
Mind, one is at the western fringes of the Indian subcontinent, while the other is literally in the middle of nowhere, with South America and Antarctica being the closest landmasses.
Hope this info fuels your curiosity and ultimately aids in the deciphering of the scripts. Cheers.
Indus Valley had sailing culture - several maritime towns in what is now Gujerat. And they had sailed all over the west coast of India to Maldives and Sri Lanka by 2000 BC, making contact with austronesians from Sumatra & Java, and so on .
@@ArrowBast
is this true? Plz can tell me the source for further reading
Another fact is that the capital of pakistan, islamabad , is designed on the same symetric design that the city of mohenjo daro is based on. if you see both the ruins and the capital from sky view,you can see the designs
Also the sculpture of the priest-king is a bit similar to the moai statues.
I can’t stress enough how important this channel and these videos are. To put it simply, I spend all my reading time dedicated to East Asian history and I don’t have the extra hours required to dig into up to date research on things like harrapa or human evolution.
Hey Stefan,
You have made a wonderful video. It is indeed quite quixotic to think that such a large civilization came about without wars when we know quite clearly that war has been a feature of human civilization forever.
One interesting thing you may have wished to add on this subject - there is a text of Akkadian emperor Rimus, son of Sargon the Akkad, where he claims that he defeated a combined force of his enemies killing more than 16,000 of them and captured Elam (SW Iran). Among the enemy forces were those of Marhasi (Jiroft, Eastern Iran) & Meluhha. Meluhha in Mesopotamian texts was the Indus or Harappan civilization.
"Rimuš, the king of the world, in battle over Abalgamash, king of Parahshum, was victorious. And Zahara[8] and Elam and Gupin and Meluḫḫa within Paraḫšum assembled for battle, but he (Rimush) was victorious and struck down 16,212 men and took 4,216 captives. Further, he captured Ehmahsini, King of Elam, and all the nobles of Elam. Further he captured Sidaga'u the general of Paraḫšum and Sargapi, general of Zahara, in between the cities of Awan and Susa, by the "Middle River". Further a burial mound at the site of the town he heaped up over them. Furthermore, the foundations of Paraḫšum from the country of Elam he tore out, and so Rimuš, king of the world, rules Elam, (as) the god Enlil had shown..."
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalgamash
So quite clearly, the Harappans not only fought wars but they were capable enough to send their warriors as far west as western Iran.
He addresses this but concludes that it is not sure that melhua means ivc
Don’t you have like a brand new baby at home or something? And yet we still get a 26 minute video? I’m simultaneously impressed, excited to watch this, yet concerned that you forgot about your child and they’re just chilling on a pile of books somewhere in a back room.
What’s the spoon for then... ?
Best place for a baby really
That baby is going to become the greatest anthropologist of all time
Hi Stefan! I loved your video and your humorous presentation. I am from Bengal in Eastern India. It's possible that the Harappan people cremated their dead or fed the bodies to the birds like the Iranians and only in rare cases they were buried. The rulers could be sannyasis or priests who lived a simple life believing in renunciation as in Plato's Utopia.
That would make sense as I saw somewhere else that they lacked religious iconography but had depictions of yoga and meditation in some places
It isn't impossible I guess, I know some have made similar claims about Neolithic European cultures, but I think people should avoid seeing what they want to see in Prehistoric civilizations. For the most part even with advances in archeology and genetics, I'm just not sure if we have enough evidence to say for sure.
Way too much politics in archeology,
Let’s not forget the “first human on Britain” controversy, where they decided to make the person black with blue eyes. And when questioned said well actually we don’t have enough genetic information to describe skin colour. But we can say they had blue eyes.....something that is very hard to have if you have higher amounts of Menalin.
They literally came out and said they did it to show that there have always been black people in Britain, like wtf why did you have to lie about history now you look ridiculous.
@@James-sk4db I believe Western Hunter Gatherers had probably had darker skin and blue eyes, maybe they had a high vitamin D content diet and thus there was less selection pressure for pale skin? There are people in north Africa who have that phenotype today, if you count light brown/olive skin as dark. But yeah, describing them as 'black' is pretty ridiculous. This is another reason why I prefer to read the original research whenever I can, rather than the reporting on it.
@@andersschmich8600 Lets not forget that neanderthals had been around for yonks and had interbred with sapiens, and the neanderthals were white (ish).
@@James-sk4db Geneticist David Reich did claim that Eurasian peoples may have inherited genes for skin and hair composition from Neanderthals, I won't pretend to know enough about genetics to say exactly what that means though.
It’s also fully possible that seeing what you want to see is expressed through believing that all societies must have been like our own in terms of hierarchical structures.
When people loot, they usually go for the good stuff - the bling, the shiny, the stuff that’s worth $$. With so many sites showing signs of mass burning, it seems plausible that they were invaded and looted, leaving behind the common items that we find today as artifacts.
But honestly idfk, just my initial thoughts.
Maybe it was the Detroit of it's time. It grow too big to be sustainable for it's time or some other reason. People packed up their stuff and moved somewhere else. Whatever they couldn't pick up,they simple left behind or burned.
The main source of their water dried away in 1900 BC. It is now a days a small river called ghaggar-harkara as most IVC sites are located on this dried river.
doesnt match the timeline. also a complete lack mass graves that would symbolize a slaughter, such as those seen after the yamnaya invasion of Europe
Makes sense
This was really interesting! It is somewhat reminiscent of the egalitarian-or-hierarchal debate over the Chaco Canyon ruins in New Mexico, USA, (AD 1000) they were long claimed to be peaceful and egalitarian until that was finally rejected in the 1990's by some due to actual evidence of oligarchy and violence. Now there is actually mRNA evidence of monarchy there at Pueblo Bonito. Pueblo Bonito itself was long spoken of as a giant apartment building but it's probably a giant palace full of giant storage bins. What were once considered temples (kivas) in Chaco are now seen as the really nice upper-class homes, vs. the hovels where the working class lived on the other side of the canyon. See Steven Lekson and Christy Turner.
I am amazed to find these days that this civilisation is even known of in general. When I was a lad in the Fifties my school had a Radical headmaster. Mr. Fuller had us doing Yoga, and I learned from him then the marvels of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. It just goes to show what a formative influence an educator can have. I remain aware of breath control to this day.
Yes, ancient indian/sri Lankan history seems to have been undertaught in modern western times
@@svono_svono_music all history is undertaught at least in highschools
@@IllBeaAround This is true. However, whatever is taught tends to be mostly taught from a western perspective in most western schools. You would naturally expect this, but it would be good if there was a broader range of global historical coverage from many different perspectives across the world.
I agree all history seems to be greatly undertaught at school - although, I am not a humanities student, but a STEM student who has done a few history classes. So I cannot make any concrete judgement on the matter due to minimal experience. However, even in STEM studies things are/were undertaught at high-school equivalent level.
Fortunately, we have the internet to explore our interests beyond syllabuses.
@@IllBeaAround Idk, some schools in other western countries also teach the histories of some of their largest minority groups too. American schools usually focus on the history of Europe and America. This is alright I guess, but a lot of Americans have to find this type of stuff on their own since most aren't college educated. And it does lead to a lot of cultural ignorance when they meet or hear about cultures other than what they are used too.
Did he also talk about the anunaki?
violence is part of every society but careful attention should be paid to whether or not the violence was INSTITUTIONALIZED into the society and how. Very interesting video and I've just discovered this channel and it's really great. Loving this video and imagining a society where social distinction may exist but the privileged don't force everyone else to live like animals and fight each other for necessities like shelter and medicine.
City walls, fortifications and bastions are really not indicators of how violent the people living in the city were, but more on how violent people on the outside were. Being just defensive and cautious is not the same as inclining towards violence. The same can be said about weapons, if the weapons were made as a precaution or as defence.
Let's face it a ruling caste of seals would have pretty simple needs.
Instead of 'the rich get richer', they had a society of 'the chonky get chonkier'
parttime soldiers makes complete sense. In medieval India, a lot of Indian peasantry was involved in parttime soldiering. India was awash with muskets and swords.
Maybe they had a general levy or conscription, and/or didn't put much glory or importance into soldiering. Strong defences and weapons, though, could mean that they were still very peaceful, in the sense that they didn't tend to attack their neighbours, but acted purely defensively. That could explain the massive fall of many cities, perhaps due to an invading force that took advantage of a militarily inferior Harappan?
That is the default state for almost all of human history, everywhere. Europe, Asia, Americas. Africa. It took a very long time for professional standing armies to become the norm.
Thank you, we need more people to look at history this way. Too many people read older interpretations and then pass that on as fact. Loved this topic. As an Indian it is funny to see that some of the indus valley things we still continue to do. For e.g our village houses still follow broadly the same structure, same design for floor tiles, same design for pottery, same symbols used to decorate patios. Yet, no one seems to make an attempt to link it to Indian traditions or texts.
St Cyril didn’t die for this
This may be the greatest comment I've ever seen
@Lucas De Araújo Marques The thumbnail for this video says "disieng sthmmtspisg utthrid" in an unholy abomination of mixed Cyrillic, Greek and Latin letters
Exactly my thoughts.
Archeologically speaking, "baddaboop."
Nods in approval.
In early Minoan culture there were what looked like gold broad axes, namely a double curved blade on each side. It turns out they were sculptures of the moon and used for ritual purposes depicting the moon, not to chop up people.
It´s amazing how far the cinematography in your videos has come
I'm so glad you covered this! The Indus Valley Civilization has been a huge curiosity for myself as well. As usual, you did a wonderful job of covering it and illuminating the interesting questions about the Indus Valley Civilization. Thank you!
It's rare to see such planned cities even nowadays in many towns.
Another fact is that the capital of pakistan, islamabad , is designed on the same symetric design that the city of mohenjo daro is based on. if you see both the ruins and the capital from sky view
When I saw the thumbnail I really didn't think it'd be on IVC lol 😂 I bought Possehl's book recently but haven't read it yet! I have a keen interest in India, it started with Indian cinema then led to Indian culture and history. Indian culture is truly unique, whether it's the philosophies, spiritualities, arts... You can't imagine it if you haven't delved into it. Many things originate from India and people aren't aware of it. Possibly even all non African ancestors can be traced back to the subcontinent about 60k ya post bottleneck event...
So I'm inclined to believe that IVC was also a truly unique and different civilization. Not a utopia, not totally peaceful or egalitarian, but in a realistic way just much better at maintaining/valuing peace and equality than others civilizations 🤷♀️
It's not a zero sum game, they can be utopic and not be perfect.
Except that Indus valley civilization is not indian mostly located in Pakistan
@@thespatulaa pakistan is a 1947 invention so I don't know what point you think you're making
@@AriaIsara so was india point makes perfect sense here
@@thespatulaa India was not invented in 1947. Pakistan was _carved out of India_ in 1947. The East India Company was created in 1600. Herodotus as far back as the 5th century BC wrote about India, and considered it one country with many languages. Modern genetics show how cohesive the Indian population is, and Pakistani DNA is no different.
Please don't bother me again with nonsense.
“These unicorn guys-these bronies” caught me so off guard 😂
It tells a lot about our human condition that while most people in the world would like to live in a peaceful society with a fair distribution of wealth, we rarely find traces of what might be such a society, and when we do, we cannot but get sceptical and look for evidence that it was not.
It almost surely wasn't. People use to think the Maya were peaceful and look at how that turned out.
Alot of people want to live peacefully but look how many just want a free ride and contribute nothing.
@@redstarling5171You'd also be surprised how many hypocritical people who cry "Peace" act the complete opposite.
Saying simple axes couldn't have been used as weapons sounds like saying hunting rifles won't kill a human just as well as an assault rifle.
Hunting rifles won't kill a human being as well as an assault rifle. :P
@Pony Boy With an automatic or semi-automatic rifle, you can shoot several shots without needing to reload. With a hunting rifle, at least of the type common in Sweden, you can only shoot two shots and then it takes 30-60 seconds to reload.
@Pony Boy Yes, and here in Sweden such semi-automatic hunting rifles are nearly impossible to get access to.
@Pony Boy I am not offended. ^^
We do in fact have a law on the freedom of expression. The four acts that build up our constitution are, 1) the Act of Government, 2) the Act of Succession, 3) the Act of Freedom of the Press, 4) the Law on the Freedom of Expression.
Are you one of the brony elite of the Indus Valley, come to save us from hierarchy and return us to a culture of moderate primitive violence? Hail the seal-bearer :)
Do the Cuctenti-Trypillia culture next. They have the same mystique of being "peacefull and egalitarian" while having cities comparable in size to Uruk. Also previously thought of as being without hierarchy, but in the last few decades found out to have more and more complex social structures.
Definitely. Hadn't heard of them before comments here, and didn't realize there was a similar culture in that region. 💚🌎✌️
Yessss! The last Eastern bastion against Indoeuropean savagery! Don't forget Foltesti, it's late offshoot in Moldavia.
@@erinmcdonald7781 supposedly likely to have been matriarchial too
Find me any society without any hierarchies
@@Свободадляроссии - To begin with all hunter-gatherer societies, by definition (and reality).
Said that, the concept is not that there is zero hierarchy, in any complex society managerial posts need to be in the hands of someone, even if on non-permanent elective or random choice basis, but if such managerial positions don't cause any significant change in socio-economic status but the manager keeps being one member more of the community, then we also talk of non-hierarchical societies. IVC or Cucuteni may have been that kind of societies: complex but also democratic and socialist.
Thank you. I appreciate the more citical approach versus the same repeated history. Well thought out and well presented.
IMHO the 15:53 says it all. The fact that they had invested their time and effort into extensive public works like baths, toilets, and sewer systems while their counterparts in Egypt and Mesopotamia mostly invested their resources into luxury for the elites while most people lived in mud huts is quite remarkable.
Really reminds me about Russia.
In the 19th century, most of our people lived in wooden houses with no water or any other amenities whatsoever, while our elites built luxurious palaces.
In the 20th century (in the Soviet period, specifically), we mostly got rid of the old elites and their ideology and in just a few decades of a planned economy, provided tens and even hundreds of millions of people with affordable (albeit quite blocky) housing with all the amenities and excellent public transportation and schooling infrastructures.
In the 21st century, we are kinda returning to the ''olden'' ways again, with scary results for normal people. The elites lead more and more luxurious lives while the normal people get poorer and poorer.
By the way, just because the society strives to be egalitarian, that doesn't mean there should be no *hierarchies*. There just should not be any unnecessary and unjust hierarchies.
For example, if a person knows architecture, such a person should be able to be on top of the hierarchy of the building process and get bigger a reward for doing hir or her job than his or her less-educated counterpart would. That situation with an architect would be an example of a just hierarchy.
An example of an unjust hierarchy would be a rich person's son or daughter who inherited the real estate, the money, or even the job position only on the basis of their blood relation.
'we mostly got rid of the old elites and their ideology and in just a few decades of a planned economy, provided tens and even hundreds of millions of people with affordable (albeit quite blocky) housing with all the amenities and excellent public transportation and schooling infrastructures.' You missed out the murder of millions of kulaks, the forced labor which killed hundreds of thousands and the gulag system. But yeah, public transport.
@@AndrewLale you're going off on a tangent not relevant to what they're talking about, it's about infrastructure and wealth distribution, and besides that you say it like romanov russia had no widespread loss of life, food shortages or political issues
Lol wut. Give me a comparison of what the Soviet Union achieved with what other countries with similar conditions like Finland achieved. Give me a comparison of what North Korea achieved with what South Korea achieved. Give me a comparison of what China achieved with what Taiwan and Southeast Asia achieved. I refuse to sell my freedom and rights to the government. As simple as that.
@@kakalimukherjee3297 Both Taiwan and South Korea were Fascist dictatorships, under military rule, until pretty recently .Them becoming democratic only happened after years of struggle. In reference to South East Asia, which you also mentioned, Thailand was an autocratic monarchy, until comparatively recently, the US supported government of Vietnam was, again, a military dictatorship, Indonesia was a military dictatorship that liquidated around 500,000 political opponents and put a further 1 million into concentration camps, Timor Leste had about a third of it's population genocided by Indonesia, the Phillipines was another dictatorship, ditto for Burma. All of them had long periods of struggle to establish some level of equity for their people and in the case of Indonesia, the Phillipines, (where there is an elective dictatorship effectively, again ditto for Burma), there's still a lot of work to be done. Your counter examples don't really work for you in the way that you imagine they do.
@@adamsmith7058 the military dictatorships in Southeast Asia and Chile did not ruin those countries' demographics, religion and economies as in Eastern Europe or Cuba. These countries did not achieve equity with communism, but with the free market. Communism has achieved nothing, but death, destruction, and misery.
'Why would you make brick houses in the hot sun?' - Permanent SHADE comes to mind...
great to see that you haven't left the spoon behind on your rise to power.
He'll be buried with a spoon and people will think that he was some poor, ignorant sod 5000 years from now :(
@@photinodecay or they will think the spoon is legendary tech :)
The real question everyone should be asking is: "What was in those pots?"
Weed
Most probably ghee, milk and other offerings
laddus, and am nt even joking. read up news.
@@sagnikacharyya5777 what news
@@rantceck unironically possible given weed is native to north india
I really enjoyed the is video. As a retired teacher in the US, I taught “world history” which in the USA means briefly condense all history outside of Europe into a few chapters here and there (ex: one chapter for all of China’s known history up until colonialism). The four major river valley civilizations are all covered in one section of one chapter. There is much more focus on the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile civilizations as their histories most directly impact the US worldview of American exceptionalism ( embarrassing 😳). So, I really never took the initiative to study more on my own even though the rise of civilization is one of the most fascinating areas of contemplation for me, especially as a pagan, since “civilization” as it developed in the Middle East eventually lead to the Christian Church…. And I think you see where I’m going here. I really respect how researched your videos are and that all sources are available for those of us who want to explore more.
lol anyone who knows the cyrillic alphabet just felt like having a stroke looking at that thumbnail
The pain is real
Yeah, it's weirdly disturbing each time I see something like that 😆
I'm especially sorry for A. Cyrillic Д is D and A is written like.. А. My mind gets so confused when I try to redd thdt 😆
I know right? I'm Polish and I can hardly look at this abomination, and, if I'm not mistaken, Stefan is Serbian! How could he? xD
@@Artur_M. He's British. His grandfather was Serbian, though.
Guys, it is just a visual joke. Also a very used one. I can understand the truble, but having a direct link with the title, I think is fine.
In Srimad Bhagavatam, it talks about people of Dwaraka carried special seals for identity. These seals are found in Dwaraka today are similar to the Indus Valley seals.
They aren't similar though
The nature of the seals are vastly different
Regarding Unicorn, please see pictures of Thar Desert Oxen. You will note that horns of some oxen were perfectly semetrical when viewed sideways. So the artisan carved only one horn.
12:51@ Stefan Milo. Harappan people were buried with weapons. In a recent discovery of Sinauli, India, archeologists discovered some tombs from Indus Valley Civilization period where people were buried with weapons and even chariots.
It is not confirmed they were harappans ....most likely they were independent
Imagine going back in time and you just see all the Harappans vibing. They're like "Want a house, bro? They're free, just make sure you have enough pots to pay your taxes or you won't be buried when you die! :) "
I would sign up
Who builds the houses?😅
@@tylerdurden3722 you and anyone who will help duh
For the 88 graves conundrum, it is possible that only the highly ranked officials, nobles or royalty were buried and the common people cremated their dead. Cremation was and still is the preferred ritual for the dead in Hinduism, something that has been established since the Vedic period, which is the civilization that emerged after the had Harappans collapsed.
"King 70 Pots and the Butter of Stone", by S. M. Troweling
So, I am from Pakistan, the sites of Indus Valley civilization esp Mohenjo-daro are five hours drive from my home. They digs are so fascinating. I hope one day they decipher the script.
It was a proto dravidian language, south indian languages are being used to decipher it.
@@kalyanc2546 That would be great and hope it brings the two countries together.
@@kalyanc2546 wrong, we have no Idea what type of language it was, it's neither proto-Dravidian or related to Indo-Aryan.
@@anirudh177 it is confirmed from genetic studies...
@@kalyanc2546 Is it so? can you send the sources? (I am not against you but I have not been keeping up with archaeology news lately)
One reason for the center ridge on more sophisticated edged weapons (which is also, paradoxically, the reason for a runnel on a sword) is that it greatly strengthens with minimal additional weight. You quote a scholar pointing out that Harappan blades would have simply folded over in use -- worse than useless in a fight.
So the best evidenced inference is that the Harappans did not have professional blade makers. If they DID, their blades would have been stronger and more durable.
The importance of the center to a forged blade was not a new technology; it was widely known -- yet not, evidently, to the Harappans.
maybe they used the weakness to their advantage, similar to the pilum of the Romans.
It was designed to bend in the shields of their enemies and generally be a one use missle, so they couldn't throw them back.
I love a good DSIENG STHMMTSPISG UTTHRID
I feel like the number of pots would make more sense as something left for the dead. I'm not sure whether this is common in other countries, but it is common in the US to leave flowers on the grave of a loved one. Maybe loved ones left pots in the Indus Valley Civilization?
Actually even to this day most Indian Upper classes get cremated upon death. If Indus valley was proto Hindu - they would not be leaving many burials . And the fire and burning signs maybe mass cremations from a pandemic of small pox or measles or plague from the past.
@@ArrowBastevery hindu do not only upper one
I arrived on your channel through a Brazilian video, on the Meteoro Brasil channel. I'm happy to find quality archeology content.
Given the scarcity of burials, relatively consistent history of alternative funereal disposals (sky burials, cremation, etc.,) and the long held tradition of reincarnation, I think the gravesites were the worst criminals and the number of pots indicated the seriousness of their crimes.
🤔
Most Indians still burn their dead so yeah that's an intriguing argument
@Rip and tear! Guts It's not a theory just a possible explanation for the lack of burial remains. There is not enough evidence to formulate any theory. It is also possible that some portion of the population burnt their dead but others practised burial. Or the burials could have been sacrifices. The possibilities are endless.
@Come to *PAPA!!!!* Thanks for the subplot to my historical fiction. If I get on the NY Times Best Seller list, I'll mention you in the sequel.
I think we are interpreting the past based on our contemporary ideas and see what we are looking for... at least to a degree. I find it fashinating that there where so many bronze age civilizations and even older.. there must be a lot left to find before we can u derstand
Gobekli tepe for one
This, we live in a world where hierarchies are so prevalent that it becomes impossible to imagine a world without them. Looking for hierarchies when we could be looking at a different, decentralized system of organization where the fruits of cooperation have to be distributed more equally to keep the system together compared to hierarchial system where more inequality breeds stability.
@@descendedofrigvedicclans2216 i was responding to 'alot left to find' n i made use of gobekli tepe because it had been ignored and assumed to be a 'worthless' hill by previous archaeologists, despite other excavations nearby in earlier decades.
In truth, it wouldve been better to suggest how arabian peninsula and sahara desert have been ignored when we KNOW there's been interesting finds.
Or, perhaps the 'temple complex' in indonesia where dating has suggested 20k years old n the government shut down excavations.
If one does bring in 'civilisation' it depends upon what is determined to be a civilisation
is it necessary to have writing to be a civilisation? cities? religion? stationary? MAths? astronomy? etc
What denotes a city? in modern terms, a city needs a cathedral, it is not a population thing, at least in uk where im from. How can you have a cathedral before christianity?
@@kimwarburton8490 In modern times in the UK the monarch chooses new cities, it was way back and only during a specific time when you needed a cathedral for a city in the UK. Before christianity there were cities.
@@somniumisdreaming i didnt know that the monarch chooses
i shouldve clarified that pre christianity it wouldve been the equivalent of whatever local religion was happening. Like Ur was the 'home' of a babylonian god and had the highest level of their 'clergy' and same for other cities to best of my knowledge. I cannot think of any ancient city that did not have either government and/or high level of religious leader. It is only in modern-day atheist culture that religion is less of a factor i would say
According to David Graeber and David Wengrow, there were possibly many societies that were egalitarian: A New Dawn. A New History of Humanity.
Keep an eye out for 'The Dawn of Everything' coming out later this year, looking at origins of social hierarchies and early egalitarian societies, co written by archeologist David Wengrow and anthropologist David Graeber. Particularly interested in the theory that many early societies may have regularly flipped from hierarchical to egalitarian depending on season and availability of food.
We see that even in recorded history, and it's not entirely consistent which way the events flow. The increasing tyranny and inequality of Rome before it fractured and split and dissolved. The creation of the middle classes following the black death, culminating in the Revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. If one thing is constant it is change
@@McHobotheBobo Yep having now read the book I'm amazed at the fact that its only very recently that we've become stuck with the idea that this is always how its been and how it'll always be. We seem to have lost that ability to imagine what society could be like. We tinker round the edges but real radical change just doesn't seem like an option to many people.
"The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently."
- David Graeber
Their weapon was trade, that is one thing we know. Everything else is speculative at best. We just don’t have enough information.
i love the critical attitude, we‘d need much more of this way of thinking almost everywhere in science
The "priest-king" figurine was the original "Hello, my name is" tag.