The Mohenjo.

daro Floods: A Reply'

GREGORY I,. POSSEHId
Waslringlort State Af useiim, University of Washingloit
Oiler the p a d three years a theory concerning the abandonment o i Ihe ancient cities of the Indus Valley
has been adranced: lhat these settlements were engulfed by a sea of mud that accumulated behind a
naturally formed dam across the Indus River. This article reviews lhis theory a n d j n d s it lacking in two
respects: ( 1 ) the nidence for the dam is extremely thin and could be accounted jor i n other ways; (2)
men y the dam did form, one can object to the interpretation that it would surely have led to the abandon-
ment of the whole of the Indw Valley. The present author sets jorth an alternative theory. This theory
proposes the1 the ckies and setUements were abandoned because the Barappans were overutilizing their
land and that they s d e d their o w n fate with the patterns of subsistence lhaf they choose to use.

W ITHIN the past three years a new theory

concerning the decline and fall of the
Indus Valley civilization has been proposed
(Raikes 1964, 1965; Dales 1966). This theory
is an attenipt to demonstrate that the first
cities of the Indus Valley were destroyed by a
series of high floods caused by the formation of
a natural dam on the lower reaches of the Indus
River. I am not wholly satisfied with this
proposal and feel that a critical review of the
evidence both for and against it is in order.
I do not urge the acceptance of a set solution
to the problem, but rather attempt to propose
alternatives and so broaden the range of pos-
sible solutions. The fall of this civilization has
puzzled archeologists for many years. Clearly
the explanation has not yet been found, a t
least in total, however promising the sugges-
tions that have been put forth.
A s a result of the excavation of a number of
Harappan sites we know that this, the third
of the world's early civilizations, knew the
arts of writing, town planning, metallurgy,
monumental architecture, and mass produc-
tion and had considerable engineering skill
(for general references to these site reports, see
Wheeler 1962). A few of their settlements were
large, even urban in nature. It has been esti-
mated that the city of Mohenjo-daro, for ex-
ample, was inhabited by up to 40,000 persons
and had an outer circuit of some three miles
(Lambrick 1964: 71; Fairservis 1967). By any
standard these figures are large for the period.
The ancient cities of the Indus were cer-
tainly a t their peak sometime around 2000
B.C. The original excavators of Mohenjo-daro
guessed that the dates were somewhat earlier,
before 2500 B.c.; owing to a re-evaluation of
the Mesopotamian chronology, however, and
32
to finds of Harappan material in datable
Mesopotamian contexts, i t can be said with
considerable assurance that the civilization
spans a time period less than the 1,000 years
between 2500 and 1500 B.C. (Gadd 1932;
Wheeler 1962:90-100). Given the fragmentary
radiocarbon dates that are available to us ancl
the general changeless nature of all of the
purely Harappan material, one can postulate
that the period lasted close to 500 years and
was centered on about 2000 B.C. (Fairservis
1961a; Agrawal 1964). Thus the dates for the
so-called Mature Harappan are somewhere
very close to 2250-1750 B.C.
By and large this civilization was oriented
toward a riverine life. With few exceptions
(e.g., Dabar Kot in Baluchistan and a few of the
coastal sites in western India) each of the sites
is closely associated with a river. The tie is
very close and is of a nature to suggest that
canal irrigation, as we know it in Mesopo-
tamian terms, was not practiced. This con-
clusion is supported by three factors. First,
most of the sites show evidence of heavy ancl
regular flooding. Extensive silts have been
found on virtually every excavated Harappan
site. This regularity of inundation is an in-
dication that the Harappan folk were making
little attempt to control their rivers. Second,
it has been established that most of the crops
grown by the Indus Valley settlements mere
those of the Ravi, or winter, season (Lam-
brick 1964:75-76; Fairservis 1967). For the
Indus and other neighboring rivers this is the
low-water period and would be the logical
time for cultivation under a flood-plain type
of irrigation. Last, the settlement pattern and
the general urban character of the civilization
were much like those of Egypt-scattered vil-
[POSSEHI,] The Mohenjo-daro Floods: A Reply
lages and few large urban sites. If such pat-
terns reflect types of irrigation, and it would
seem that they do in Egypt, then we could con-
clude that the proposition has some validity.
The most distinctive feature of the regularly
planned Harappan towns and cities is the vast
use of burnt brick. Scarcely a building was
constructed a t any of the sites that is not of
this expensive material. Largely on this ac-
count the preservation of Harappan settle-
ments is almost unparalleled in the ancient
world. Walls many feet high can be seen vir-
tually intact at the more fully excavated sites.
At the head of the Rann of Kutch, in western
India, the Harappan town of Lothal has a
huge tank, ofttimes referred to as a dockyard,
710 by 120 feet (Rao 1963:179). This struc-
ture remains in almost perfect condition. It is
presumed that burnt brick was used as pro-
tection against the floods that periodically
inundated the cities and villages. Certainly
it is much more durable under flood conditions
than the more easily made sun-dried brick.
Materially the Indus Valley civilization
shows comparatively few outside contacts.
Almost all of the material found in the Harap-
pan sites has its own distinctive quality.
Signs of a distant, outside origin are singularly
absent. So, too, are signs of extensive trade,
other than with parts of India and the eastern
fringe of the Iranian plateau. We know that
this civilization produced ornaments and u ten-
sils of gold and silver in some numbers, al-
though they are far from common. In addi-
tion, copper and bronze were used for the
manufacture of tools, household pots, orna-
ments, and, rarely, flat stamp seals. (The nor-
mal Indus type of seal is a flat, square stone
carved with the representation of an animal,
either real or imaginary, and a pictographic
script. This script is still undeciphered.)
Little is known of the origins of the civiliza-
tion. At about 2250 B.C. there seems to have
been a very short period of rapid cultural
change within the Indus Valley and possibly
in certain areas to the east in modern India.
This “cultural explosion” is reflected in the
archeological record by the sudden and si-
multaneous development of true urban centers;
writing; the wide use of burnt brick; town
planning with regular street layouts, districts,
and formal sewage systems; a distinctive series
of pottery types; a vastly widened use ot met-
als; and the spatial dominance of a single
culture over an unprecedented area. Harappan
33
culture roughly covers a triangle with sides of
1,000 miles. The sites reach from the Pakistan-
Iran border on the Arabian Sea to the area a
little north of Bombay. From there the eastern
leg goes north through modern Delhi and up to
about Lahore. The western leg follows the
edge of the Indus Valley and then extends
along the coast to the Iranian border. This
period of rapid change is not a t all understood
as yet. However it was so short that the
archeological record shows something of a
break a t this point, and transitions between
Harappan levels and underlying village cul-
tures have not been fully discovered. This
break in the record has led a number of arche-
ologists to speculate that the civilization is not
an indigenous development. Nonetheless, sev-
eral factors would speak for an internal de-
velopment of the civilization.
The biggest problem facing those who pro-
pose a nonindigenous origin is that of pinning
down the area from which the conquerors of
the earlier culture came. Kramer (1963 :113-
114) would derive them out of Mesopotamia.
But we have found no signs of material re-
lations with this area during the transitional
or early periods of the civilization. Thus, this
speculation must remain just that. Moreover
there are several reasons to believe that the
Harappan urban culture is an outgrowth,
much expanded and considerably changed, of
the local culture that preceded it. These so-
called Amrian and Rot Dijian people had a
settlement pattern almost exactly like that of
their Harappan successors. Underlying many
Harappan sites, a t least those within the Indus
Valley, there may be found these pre-Harap-
pan remains. Thus, although quantitative
changes are more than likely to be a part of the
picture, no drastic change in the pattern of
land use is indicated. Secondly, there are some
distinct carry-overs between the Amri, Kot
Diji, and other related cultures and that of the
Harappan. For example, Harappan pottery
is a distinctive ware; however, it does share
many designs with the pre-Harappan pottery
(fish scale, pipal leaf, intersecting circles, etc.)
and some vessel forms such as the dish on
stand. This latter form is most closely tied to
the prehistoric Kulli culture of southern
Baluchistan. There is also a suggestion that the
Harappan script may be derived out of a well-
developed system of prehistoric potter’s
marks. Other materials, such as bangles, fig-
urines, the distinctive stone tools, and the
34 Americait A nthrnpologisl
like, also have origins in pre-Harappan con-
texts. It seems likely that other relationships
exist, but more excavation of the small village
sites and better excavation of the large sites
are needed before conclusive evidence, either
way, can be had.
It thus seems probable that the civilization
is an internal development. If foreign relation-
ships were present in sufficient strength to
have virtually obliterated a dynamic and
widespread prehistoric culture and to have
then made possible the development of a city-
oriented state on this devastated base, traces
of them would surely have been found by now.
However, whether the cities originated through
the interaction of local or foreign factors, the
Harappans came of age quickly. This sug-
gests that the transitional period may have
been one of considerable flux and great change,
It challenges the archeologist to better define
the nature of the processes at work.
AS unsolved as the problem concerning the
origin of the civilization is the problem of its
fall. In the past, several theories have been
advanced in an attempt to explain the aban-
donment of the Harappan towns and cities.
The most popular and most often quoted
theory ties the arrival of the Aryans, some-
time in the middle of the second millenium,
with a formal assault on the cities of the Indus.
Chief among the advocates of this theory are
Wheeler (1947:78-83; 1962:96-99), Piggott
(1952:214-244), and D. 1%. Gordon (1958:
77-98). The foundation of the theory lies in
the historical accounts of the Rig Veda. A
part of this document describes the conquest
of a settled, agricultural people native to
India by the newly arrived Aryan tribes. Al-
though translation difficulties arise, we know
that these people did live in defended places,
although not necessarily in walled cities. The
text goes on in some detail and describes the
appearance of the inhabitants of the settle-
ments and some of the geographical aspects of
the land. Some of the names given in the Rig
Veda can still be found in modern place names.
This theory is most clearly elaborated in the
diligent work of Piggott. He has made a
painstaking investigation of the Late Harap-
pan remains a t most of the sites and concluded
that there are many finds that can be corre-
lated with what are presumed to be Aryan
remains in Iran and areas to the north. He
has even posited a so-called human massacre
:it Mohenjo-daro in the last phases of the oc-
[60, 1967
cupation of that once vast city to substanti-
ate a violent end to the civilization (for a
discussion, see Dales 1964 and a response by
Wheeler 1964). I n addition there were burned
“destruction” levels a t several sites in Balu-
chistan, such as Rana Ghundi and Nal. All of
these materials-the objects, the massacre,
and the destruction levels-could supposedly
be correlated with one another and with a pro-
posed date for the Rig Veda-ca. 1.500 B.C.
In fact the Rig Veda is insecurely dated.
1500 B.C. is more of a convenient round number
than anything else. We are reasonably sure
that it is no earlier than this date, and it may
be a few hundred years more recent. Thus,
with the new dates for the Harappan civiliza-
tion showing its end a t about 1750 B.c., and
with the Rig Veda probably at 1250, for a
mean date, there may be as much as a 500-
year gap between the two. In addition, the
correlation of the destruction levels in Balu-
chistan with one another and with the scat-
tered finds of western material in the Indus
Valley was never fully successful. For reasons
such as these, this theory is probably not going
to be the answer to the decline of this civiliza-
tion.
One other theory has been proposed to ex-
plain the decline of the cities, and is the prime
subject of this account. This theory has to do
with the Indus floods and their effect on the
settlements. The earliest investigators a t
Mohenjo-daro noted that numerous layers of
silt could be found throughout the excavated
sections of that and other Harappan sites.
Some of them could even be correlated with
one another to form general inundation levels.
T t was presumed by these investigators that
the silts were caused by the normal flooding of
the associated river. They even suggested
that the continuous flooding and silt deposi-
tion might account for the abandonment of
the cities:
We have, indeed, come upon a striking example
of the decay of a once honourable city, and the
cause of which we suspect to be the vagaries ol
the Indus rather than pressure by invaders, nf
whose existence we have, in fact, little positive
evidence.
It does not follow that the floods of which there
is evidence caused any great loss of life. But even
two feet or so of water round the city annually
for weeks at a time would soon have led to its
evacuation by the wealthier classes; for it would
have been difficult to move in and out of the city,
and the transport of goods would have been itn-
POSSEHL] The Mohenjo-daro Floods: A Reply
possible without boats. Flood-water nearly
reached the mounds of Mohenjo-daroin the sum-
mer of 1929, and it may well have been an annual
event towards the end of the Late Period. The
poorer people, perhaps more attached to their
homes, would naturally have remained behind
and carried on as best they might; to them it
would have been no great hardship to wade in and
out of the city at certain seasons of the year, as
the fellahin of Egypt used to do when the annual
inundation of the Nile made little islands of their
villages [Mackay 1938:6].
A recent reinvestigation of these silts has
produced some new evidence. R. L. Raikes, a
hydrologist with considerable interest in arche-
ology, and G. F. Dales, of the University of
Pennsylvania, have recently found that there
are certain concentrations of silts that are
above the present flood plain. Raikes tells us
that “many of these were of deep sterile mate-
rial that showed evidence of deposition under
water.” Other occurrences of silt “ . . . took the
form of deep deposits of brick rubble totally
impregnated by the same silty clay, probably
the result of the collapse of structures into
shallow water overlying imperfectly consol-
idated sediments” (1965:197). Raikes and
Dales also visited other sites to see what the
sediments were like there. They concluded
that the flood levels at these sites, with the
exception of Amri, had the same character as
those of Mohenjo-daro.
I n a n attempt t o explain the presence and
nature of these sediments, which appear to
them to be more like those from a lake than a
slow-moving flood, they seem to reject the
possibility that the normal action of the Indus
cananswerthequestion. Raikes feels that some-
how a lake must have repeatedly inundated
the city and all other surrounding sites. T o
create the lake, they propose that at least one,
and probably several, natural dams were
created in succession on the lower Indus some-
where near the present town of Sehwan. And
it was the water and silt that collected behind
these dams that were responsible for the suc-
cession of silts at Mohenjo-daro and the other
Harappan sites in Sind. Then, in an effort to
keep the city above water and mud, the
Harappan citizens were forced to invest con-
siderable amounts of time and energy in tasks
not directly associated with food production.
Through time this must have considerably
taxed their resources, and they were at last
obliged to abandon the sites. This process of
continuing floods eventually weakened the
35
entire Harappan system to t h e point that i t
was left vulnerable to outside compromise, by
hill raiders and general cultural decay. Raikes
and Dales explain the abandonment of the
greater part of the Harappan culture state as
the end result of these processes (Wheeler
1964 and Dales 1966).
At first thought, the formation of a natural
dam large enough to block a river as large as
the Indus might seem a bit unlikely. However
in 1818 such a dam did form there and sub-
stantially stopped the flow of water for about
two years. This so-called Allah Bund was a
naturally formed uplift dam some 50 miles
long, 15 miles wide, and, on a n average, some
50 feet high (Raikes 1964, 1965:200). It was
apparently caused by a combination of earth-
quake and underground pressure due to the
presence of hot gaseous material.
An important point that this theory deals
with very nicely is the rather gradual decline
of Mohenjo-daro. Sir Mortimer Wheeler notes
with respect to that city:
One thing is clear about the end of Mohenjo-
daro: the city was already slowly dying long be-
fore the ultimate coup dc grace. Houses, mounting
gradually upon the ruins of their predecessors or
upon artificial platforms in an incessant endeavour
.
to out-top the Indus floods. . were increasingly
shoddier in construction, increasingly carved-up
into warrens for a swarming lower-grade popuk-
tion. . . . Economic decline is everywhere ap-
parent. . . [1964:308-309].
This gradual decline is quite different from
that presented by sites such as Harappa, or
Rupar farther to the north. Here the Harappan
abandonment is relatively sudden. To deal
with this problem Dales and Raikes are forced
t o go beyond the floods and hypothesize that
hill raiders, quick to sense the weakened
state of the civilization, came down upon i t
and destroyed these cities.
This theory would seem t o have several
advantageous points. It explains the silts, in
terms of a n observed phenomenon. It ex-
plains the gradual decline of Mohenjo-daro,
and might explain that of Harappa and other
sites in its neighborhood. Moreover this
theory has been derived out of a new, although
limited, body of excavated data and presented
as a fresh approach to the problem. However,
as was said in the beginning, reservations
exist. These are centered on a consideration
of the following points: (1) is the dam neces-
sary, or even a possibility in light of the present
36 A wiericaii A nlhopologisl
data; and (2) if the dam was indeed formed,
what does i t necessarily tell us about any-
thing else?
I n any attempt to explain the dam, the
silt levels a t Mohenjo-daro and the other sites
are of crucial importance. Yet the investi-
gators tell us pitifully little about them.
“About 150 occurrences of silty clay were
selected that seemed to correspond with ‘flood’
levels (nearly all above the present flood-plain
level). Many [how many?] of these were of
deep sterile material that showed evidence of
deposition under water” (Raikes 1965 :196-
197; italics mine). I t would be interesting to
know the criteria used to distinguish these
still-water deposits lrom those derived from
slowly flowing, naturally derived flood waters,
particularly since there were apparently even
some difficulties encountered in identifying
flood deposits. “Sometimes i t was difficult to
distinguish between mud-brick and natural
deposits but a sufficient number [what num-
ber?] of clearly identifiable examples of each
was found for it to bc said with certainty that
both water-deposited material and mud-
brick filling occur in various levels up to about
29 feet above the flood plain” (Raikes 1965:
197). The real question here is whether all or
any of the silts must be derived from standing
water. Furthermore, if they must be of this
derivation, is it necessary to postulate the
formation of a dam and its associated lake?
Could not the mature character of the Indus
River explain such happenings? I n Sind the
river falls some nine inches per mile and has
the wide-ranging meander pattern of a mature
stream. We know from Raikes that there are
indications that the flood plain may have
been higher in the past than it is now. Thus,
an oxbow lake could have engulfed the site
after a flood and stayed until the population
or nature released the water. Even the normal
very slowly flowing flood waters could prob-
ably explain some, if not most, of the silts.
Coincidentally, there is an oxbow lake very
near to Mohenjo-daro today. The modern
village of Hgsan Wahan is located on its shore.
A second question comes to mind consider-
ing these silts. Raikes says that ‘la graphical
plot of the 150 cases studied and of some ad-
ditional occurrences resulting from the new
cxcavation shows ahat there are only three
zones, bet?&%~~158.5,f168.5 and +170,
and +175.2 and +176.7, where intervals of
1.5 ft. or more contain no flood levels. All
[60, 1967
these levels are in feet above mean sea level,
the present flood-plain level being + 156.0”
(Raikes 1965: 197-199). Such use of stratig-
raphy in terms of absolute values above sea
level does not lend itself to conclusive inter-
pretation; however, one thing is indicated.
There would seem to be a n absence of general
inundation levels at the site. Rather, this
evidence tends to show that there was a series
of minor (natural?) floods instead. I fail to
find in Raikes’s text the rcasoning bchind his
assertion that this “ . . . absence of general
inundation levels, far from contradicting the
original assumption, helps t o explain it”
(1965: 199). Moreover, this evidence does not
fit at all well with his earlier statement that
“Mohenjo-daro, and inevitably all other sites
in the same general area of the Indus flood-
plain, were gradually engulfed by mud”
(1965:196). I just do not see that Mohenjo-
daro was ever “engulfed in mud.”
With these questions unanswered, there is
no reason to believe that the normal high
flooding of the Indus cannot be used to explain
the silt levels. Even most of the highest levels
could conceivably be accounted for in the
same way. As to the others, the very high
levels at about f185 feet, they could be, tle-
pending on their exact nature, due t o standing
water derived from a number of sources such
as rain, human activity, or even an exceptional
flood.
The dam itself is still another consideration.
From Mr. Raikes’s chart (1965:198) the pro-
posed dam would probably have been a t or
near the town of Sehwan. Here is one place
on the Indus where there is evidence of fault-
ing and underground pressure and activities.
As best a s can be judged from this chart and
from maps, such a dam would have to have
been on the order of 100 feet high for the floods
to have reached Mohenjo-daro and cover its
upper levels. T h e topography of the Indus
plain is very flat, and is likely to have been so
4,000 years ago. Thus it is very likely that a n
exceptionally long dam would be necessary t o
reach ground high enough to stop water up to
this level. After examining the modcrn maps
available to me, I would coiiclucle t h a t it
length somewhere in the vicinity of 150 miles
would be necessary for the end of the dam t o
reach an elevation comparable to that of the
highest flood levels at Mohenjo-daro, and
thus for a lake to form to a comparable height.
Such a dam is considerably larger than the
POSSEHL] The Mohenjo-daro Floods: A Reply 37
.411ah Bund of 1818, and it would be interesting
to see if a comparable natural dam exists any-
where in the world.
Two other points seem relevant here. The
first concerns the possibility of the survival of
remnants of the dam or dams. It would be
presumptive to say that they surely exist;
however, they might be found if a search were
made for them. The most likely place to look
would be along the mountainous Baluchistan
side, where protective outcrops might have
preserved some of the sections. The second
point concerns the way in which the dam was
filled with sediments and water. Raikes main-
tains that the upstream face of the dam would
have been highly permeable by water but not
by silts and other solid debris. Consequently
the area behind the dam would have gradually
filled with mud. Water would be present in
varying amounts depending on the season of
the year. When the sediments reached a height
sufficient to allow water to breach the top of
the dam itself, down-cutting of the dam and
sediments would have been initiated.’ Now,
conclusive proof of such a dam and sediments
could be obtained if terraces, which would be
the natural result of the rejuvenation of the FIGURE 1. Map of the Lake Manchar area show-
river, could he found. These could probably be ing the location of some Harappan and pre-Harap-
shown to he different from the normal terrac- pan sites. The dam may have formed near the town of
ing of the Indus, since their longitudinal ori- Sehwan.
entation would be a function of the last level
of the lake and not of the topography of the pears why silts a t Mohenjo-daro cannot be
valley floor. Such terraces have never been derived from the normal flooding of the Indus.
reported, and the proposers of the theory did Moreover, concrete geological evidence of the
not attempt to find them. dam and silt terraces should be available for
Directly related to this last point is the study; these have not yet been found or
next. It is fair to assume that Dales and Raikes sought after. In addition there seem to be
are convinced that their proposed dam was Harappan sites in areas that according to the
formed down stream from the Lake Manchar stated sequence of events should be completely
area (see Figure 1). They visited sites there silted over, with the sites hidden from view
and concluded that the silts exposed there (for example: Pandi Wahi, Lohri, Lakhiyo,
appeared to have the same qualities as those Gazi Shah, and Tando Rahim Khan).
of Mohenjo-daro. Now, if the area behind a The second general objection to this
50- to 100-foot dam near Sehwan was tilled theory is that even if the dam was formed, and
with silts that high, or nearly so, the entire even if Mohenjo-daro was engulfed in mud,
Lake Manchar “niche” would have been what more does it tell us? Dales asserts that it
tilled to a very comparable level. This filling tells much more than simply t h a t Mohenjo-
would also have covered all of the sites in this daro as a city was abandoned.
area. Thus, I think i t strange that there are
numbers of Harappan, and even pre-Harappan, Could such a series of natural catastrophes,
rather than the Aryan invasion, have brought
sites in this small region. about the collapse of Harappan civilization? The
I n view of these points, particuarly the city of Harappa itself and lesser sites in the Indus
last, i t is my considered opinion that there is valley to the north of Mohenjo-daro do not seem
room for serious doubt concerning the dam to have ever suffered significant flooding. Instead
that has been hypothesized. No reason ap- they give the appearance of having been abruptly
38 American Anthropologist [69, 1967
abandoned, after which they stood empty for ment. It is only natural to believe that building
centuries. Such a pattern is certainly compatible activity at the sites would be forced to keep
with the invasion hypothesis. It is ale0 compatible pace with these two adversaries. I n the end it
with a situation in which the Harappan state’s may even be that Mohenjo-daro and many
weakened heartland to the south was unable to other sites were abandoned because of this
send help to the inhabitants of the northern
frontier when they were threatened. The people process. However, I do not believe that this
who presented the threat could quite well have is basically the cause behind the fall of the
been hill raiders rather than Aryan invaders. An Harappan civilization, and have not since my
archaeological fact must also be taken into ac- first reading of Mackay’s hypothesis.
count in any effort to reconstruct the Harappan What of the end of this civilization? Some
demise: The northern Indus sites show no evi- very promising proposals have been made that
dence of a decline in material prosperity before would seen] to be getting close to the core of
their abandonment but quite the opposite is true the problem and its solution. These proposals
of Mohenjo-daro and other southern sites [Dales deal for the most part with the techniques of
1966:98 1.
exploitation the Harappan citizens utilized to
While such a conjecture is not wholly gain their subsistence. Wheeler seems to have
unreasonable, several dificulties arise in cor- been the first to put the germ of this idea in
relating it with the archeological record. For words. He suggested that the Harappans were
cxarnple, one fails Lo see any evidence of the heavily taxing the resources of their various
proposed hill raiders who supposedly brought areas. Heavy use of crop lands, pastures, and
Harappa to its knees. Secondly, I am not con- fuel for brick, pottery, and the like probably
vinced that Mohenjo-daro and the central put a strain on the general landscape. This
Inclus were the “heartland” of this civilization coupled with the floods, which could have
in any sense other than geographical. Cer- caused extensive soil erosion on overtaxed
tainly the Punjab and modern Gujurat must land, may have created a situation in which
have been highly productive areas in those deterioration of the productive potential of the
days. Thus, i t has not been demonstrated that land was seriously compromised. “In rough
economically the civilization was solely de- terms, Mohenjo-daro was wearing out its land-
pendent on the area around Mohenjo-daro for scape, whether by excessive zeal or by excessive
food and other commercial goods. Politically, indolence. Over the years it was dying long
Harappa has always been seen as the north- before the final blow” (Wheeler 1959:113; his
ern counterpart of Mohenjo-daro. So the fall italics).
of Mohenjo-daro as a settlement or capital A more complete statement and a tentative
may not have necessarily spelled eventual substantiation of this approach are given by
death and abandonment to Harappa or any- Fairservis (1967). He examines the food plants
where else. and animals that we know or strongly suspect
Moreover, Mohenjo-daro was in some senses were used by the Harappans, and arrives at a
only a settlement. Why could not, or did not, diet based on these plants and animals, known
the people build another city or a series of general food requirements, and the modern-
smaller settlements out of the way of the day Pakistani diet. From this and from a
slowly encroaching mud and water? As Rakes population estimate, which he derives from
admits, part of the silt-filled lake would have independent data and which checks exactly
been quite usable, and presumably quite fer- with other estimates made through the use of
tile during a part of the year (1965 :200). If the different criteria, he estimates the farm acreage
Harappans were as adaptable and dynamic as and the number of animals necessary to sup-
their earlier history has shown them to be, port a city like Mohenjo-daro. These figures
then one might presume that they could have show that crop acreage, animals, and fodder
successfully met this challenge, just as they were used in considerable amounts. In fact
had successfully met others. Even if the dam Fairservis seriously questions the possibility
was formed, I feel that it necessarily explains that the civilization could long maintain itself
nothing more than the reasons behind the col- a t these levels. I n his opinion the fall was in-
lapse of sites of habitation. Mohenjo-daro was evitable under the conditions that seem to
flooded-many times. We know that the flood- have been defined by the Harappans them-
plain did collect substantial amounts of sedi- selves.
POSSEHL] The Mohenjo-daro Floods: A Repby
Although Fairservis and Wheeler do not yet
have exact answers, I feel that they are a t
least on the right approach. It appears that
factors essentially a part of the Harappan
culture and intimately connected to its socio-
economic character ultimately spelled disaster
over the long run. Furthermore, my tendency
a t this time is to believe that the cause is some-
how tied to the peculiarly urban and mass
techniques of production. Preceding the
civilized folk was a widespread and flourishing
village-based culture, which appears to have
been growing and expanding a t a slow rate.
Then at about 2250 B.C. this culture was
rapidly and almost abruptly transformed into
a civilization. This civilized phase of the story
is so short, about 500 years, when compared to
the much longer-lived village cultures that I
am led to believe that it may have spelled its
own destruction.
This line of reasoning, dealing as it does with
patterns and techniques of land utilization,
might also explain the general decline of
Baluchistan hill cultures. It can be shown that
the last phases of the Baluch villages are of
about the same date as the Mature Harappan
in the Indus Valley. Then, a t about the same
time both ways of life seem to disappear. I am
inclined to give the same reasons for each
happening. Raikes has attempted to do this
by postulating that the earthquakes associated
with the damming of the Indus River were
responsible. However, he makes an important
.
chronological error by stating: ‘‘. . there does
not seem to be any convincing reason why
between say 2300 B.C. and 1100 B.C. the whole
of Baluchistan should not have been virtually
abandoned, the peasant populations having
reverted to a nomadic life as a result of natural
disasters” (1964:295). This is not the place to
begin an extended discussion of Baluch village
chronology, but a number of factors do in-
dicate that Raikes is mistaken. For example
a t Sutkagen-dor, a Harappan site near the
Iranian border, it was noted by Dales that “a
small number of painted sherds from the sur-
face of Sutkagen-dor belong to the Baluchistan
hill-culture traditions rather than to Harap-
pan manufacture. . . . i t is quite likely that
these sherds represent trade or other more
casual contacts between Harappans and their
Baluchistan neighbours” (1962:90-91). The
same was found to be true for the site of
Sotka-koh, another Harappan site on the
39
coast. In addition the radiocarbon dates for
this area, few as they are, all indicate that the
upper levels of many sites in these hills ex-
tend well into the second millenium. I n fact
the site of Niai Buthi in Las Bela has a date of
1900 B.C. This certainly indicates that the site
was contemporary to the Harappans. The
dates for Damb Sadaat, a site in the Quetta
Valley, center on about 2300 B.C. for Damb
Sadaat 11, the intermediate period of the site.
Its excavator would place the last phase of
occupation, Damb Sadaat 111, between 2400
and 1650 B.C. (Fairservis 1956:356; for pub-
lished dates see Dales 1965:276-277). Ceramic
ties between Quetta and many other sites in
Baluchistan will support the contention that
the end phase of village life in Baluchistan
ended sometime around 1750 B.C. or later.
Thus, Raikes cannot be correct in his assertion
concerning the earthquakes and the abandon-
ment of the Baluch villages by 2300 B.C.
It is possible t o postulate that the villagers
in Baluchistan were overtaxing the land in
much the same way as the Harappans. There
came a time when the land would no longer
support the exploitation that was required to
maintain the population. At this point, de-
nuded ground and overfarmed soils took their
toll. Eventually the population either moved
on to better areas or changed their pattern of
subsistence, since the productive potential of
their old land was largely destroyed.
The drop in village count was apparently
considerable, I n the Quetta Valley during the
period contemporary with the Harappan civ-
ilization we know that there were some 17
settlements. However, in the following period
(1500 to 800 B.c.) there were only five or six.
Succeeding periods show that the population
did not vary extensively until modern times.
This once-productive valley, which supported
a considerable population, remained impover-
ished even though areas very near t G it were
being heavily utilized. For example, the
Seistan Basin, located about 300 miles to the
west of Quetta, had a spectacular history
within the Partho-Sassanian period. There
were some 69 sites there a t this time (Fair-
servis 1961b:94-96). Yet in Quetta there were
only six or seven settlements. This would in-
dicate, to me at least, that Quetta was no
longer suited to the maximum sort of exploita-
tion that was once possible.
As the reader may have already judged, little
40 American Anthropologist
is secure in our knowledge of the Indus Valley
civiliza.tion. I feel that the theory that has
been criticized here, for all its merits, is ul-
timately not going to answer our questions.
This is what prompted my reply.
KOTES
1 At this time I would like to thank Dr. Walter A. Fairservis
and Dr. Barrie Morrison. Both read, and made many useful
comments on, the prdminary draft of this paper. Dr. Fainervis
was very instrumental in urging me to express many of the ideas
in this piece of work. However, I must hasten to add that neither
ofltliese gentlemen should be held a t all reponaible for errors
that might occur in the text. Theee are entirely the fault of the
author.
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