Rise and fall of feudalism chart
Villages thus grew in number and some became towns. The surplus from farming and pastoralism allowed people to engage in a multitude of other occupations and made for a lively trade. That period is known as the Vedic Age (1700 – 600 BCE).ĭuring the long course of the Vedic Age, states formed in northern India. As they interacted with indigenous peoples, a new period in India’s history took shape. The Aryans brought a distinctive language and way of life to the northern half of India and, after first migrating into the Punjab and Indus Valley, pushed east along the Ganges River and settled down into a life of farming and pastoralism. While it declined, India saw waves of migration from the mountainous northwest, by a people who referred to themselves as Aryans. This civilization, however, faded away by 1700 BCE, and was followed by a new stage in India’s history. During the third millennium BCE, building on these foundations, urban centers emerged along the Indus River, along with other elements that contribute to making a civilization. Much like the states of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, the foundations for that history were established by Paleolithic foragers who migrated to and populated the region, and then Neolithic agriculturalists who settled into villages.
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The Indus Valley civilization (2600 – 1700 BCE) now stands at the beginning of India’s long history. Photo by Hassan Nasir, Wikimedia Commons Excavation of this ancient city began in 1920. With the discovery of this lost civilization, the timeline for India’s history was pushed back over one thousand years.įigure 3.1: Archaeological Site for Harappa. Harappa, it turned out, was an ancient city dating back to the third millennium BCE, and only one part of a much larger civilization sprawling over northwest India. But the excavation of Harappa did not begin until 1920, and neither the Archaeological Survey nor Indian archaeologists understood their significance until this time. When he became the director of Great Britain’s Archaeological Survey in 1872, he ordered protection for these ruins. He was, therefore, quite dismayed that railway contractors were pilfering these bricks for ballast. A British army engineer, Sir Alexander Cunningham, sensed its importance because he also found other artifacts among the bricks, such as a seal with an inscription. A large one was located in a village named Harappa (see Figure 3.1). Yet, even during the nineteenth century British explorers and officials were curious about brick mounds dotting the landscape of northwest India, where Pakistan is today. Prior to the twentieth century, for instance, historians believed that India’s history began in the second millennium BCE, when a people known as Indo-Aryans migrated into the Indian subcontinent and created a new civilization. Our knowledge of the ancient world has been radically altered by impressive archaeological discoveries over the last two centuries. Odisha State Museum, Indiaįrom: World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500ĭelhi Sultanate Introduction: A Political Overview The earliest work of Indian aesthetics is Bharata’s “Natya Shastra.” It consists of a few instructions to the actors about present plays.