Bricks Beads and Bones

Subsistence Strategies

Harappans ate a wide range of plant and animal products, including wheat, barley, lentils, chickpea, and sesame. Animal bones found at sites include cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo, and pig, while agricultural technologies like terracotta models of ploughs and oxen were used for farming.

Town Planning and Drainage System

Harappan cities were divided into two parts: the smaller higher citadel and the larger lower town. Roads and streets were laid out along an approximate grid pattern, featuring a meticulously designed underground drainage system connected to every house.

Seals, Script, and Weights

Seals were used to facilitate long-distance communication and mark the ownership of goods. The Harappan script remains undeciphered to this day, and exchanges were regulated by a system of weights usually made of a stone called chert, generally cubical with no markings.

Craft Production in Chanhudaro

Chanhudaro was a tiny settlement exclusively devoted to craft production, including bead-making, shell-cutting, metalworking, seal-making, and weight-making using materials like carnelian, jasper, crystal, quartz, copper, bronze, and gold.

Decline of the Civilization

Around 1800 BCE, most of the mature Harappan sites in regions like Cholistan were abandoned due to climatic change, deforestation, floods, shifting or drying up of rivers, and the eventual destruction or shifting of the political center to Gujarat and Ganga-Yamuna doab.