Indus Civilization in Saurashtra

The Indus Civilization in Saurashtra explores the nature of ancient India’s first urban culture inGujarat. The mataerial on which this books is based was derived from Dr. Possehl’s research program in this region and the Appendices accompanying the text provide complete coverage of his data. One of the contributions this work seeks to make is a more complete understanding of the important Harappan site of Lothal to the south-west of Ahmedabad. An original hypothesis is developed in this regard which should be of interest to ancient historians and arcaeologists aloke. This discussion, plus the broader approach to the protohistoric archaeology of Gujarat, provide the student of the anciend world with a new insight into the character of the Indus Civilization in its couthwestern domain.

About the Author. :

Dr. Gregory L. Possehl is Assistant Curator of South Asian Archaeology in the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania and an Assistant Porofessor in this University’s Department of South Asia regional Studies. He has undertaken archaeological field work in Egypt, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and India as well as the United States. He was education as an Anthropologist at the University of Washington and the University of Chicago where he received his Ph. D in 1974. Dr. Possehl’s interests in archaeology center on the character of prehistoric adaptation especially the nature off food producing subsistence systems. He has written widely on this and related topics for periodicals in both the United Stes and India. In addition to the Indus Civilization in Saurashtra Dr. Possehl has published Ancient Cities of the Indus and KULLI: Trade and the Emerrgence of Urbanization in the Indus Valley as well as The Ecological Backgrounds of South Asian Prehistory, which he edited with Dr. Kenneth A.R. Kennedy.

This book contains the following content headings :

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

List of Tables

Abbreviations

I.                     Introduction

(a)     The Problem

(b)     The Research

II.                    The Emergence of the Post Urban Harappan Phase and the Harappan Tradition

(a)     An Historical Review of Excavations

(b)     An Harappan Tradition

(c)     Sind

(d)     The Punjab

(e)     Gujarat

III.                  Gujarat: An overview of the Natural Variables

(a)     The Region

(b)     The Subregions

(c)     Saurashtra

(d)     Landform

(e)     Rainfall

(f)       Fflora

IV.                  The Archaeological Data

(a)     The Area Selected for Investigation

(b)     Exploration in the Ghelo and Kalubhar Drainage

(c)     The Basis for a Chronology

(d)     Rangpur and Lothal

(e)     The Sites: Periodization

V.                   Urban and Post Urban Harappan Settlement Patterns in Gujarat

(a)     Natural and Cultural Factors affecting Harappan Settlement Patterns in Gujarat

(b)     Nearness to Water: The Rivering Setting

(c)     Soils and Settlement

(d)     Interior Saurashtra: A Zone of Restricted Agricultural Land

(e)     Settlements in Kutch: The Tie to the Indus Valley

(f)       The Variation in the Number of Sites through Time

(g)     Models for the Interpretation of Variation

(h)     Populations Change

(i)       Migration

(j)       Variation in Living Pattern

(k)     Nuclearization and Dispersal

(l)       Serial Occupation

(m)   Summary of Site Variation Throught Time

(n)     Lothal and North Gujarat: A Hypothesis Concerning a Regional Center of Harappan Civilization

(o)     The North Gujarat Plain

(p)     Langhnaj 

(q)     Lothal

VI.                  Conclusions

Appendices

A.       Harappan Sites in Gujarat

B.       Sample of Site Data Form

C.      Report on a Human Cranium from Rampara II by Dr. Kenneth A.R. Kennedy

D.      The Archaeological Sites of the Ghelo and Kalubhar Valleys

Bibliography

Index