Climate change led to collapse of ancient Indus civilization, study finds

[DavidDvorkin]

A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology.

Once extending more than 1 million square kilometers across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, northwest India and eastern Afghanistan, the Indus civilization was the largest—but least known—of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-05/whoi-ccl052312.php

[Odin2005]

1. I remember reading deforestation as a cause.

the theory is that they used huge amounts of firewood to fuel their brick kilns and they ruined the landscape. This fatally weakened them, their states collpased and became depopulated, easy pickings from the Proto-Indo-Iranian-speaking nomads from Central Asia.

[calimary]

2. Interesting!

It's fascinating to watch the population dynamics, the landscape dynamics, weather dynamics - how one impacts the other. This makes a lot of sense.

[marmar]

3. Dejavu baby.

[NNN0LHI]

4. Angkor too

http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/climate-change-ended-angkor-report/2007/03/14/1173722550238.html

Climate change ended Angkor - report

March 14, 2007

Climate change was one of the key factors in the abandonment of Cambodia's ancient city of Angkor, Australian archaeologists said today.

The centuries-old city, home to more than 700,000 people and capital of the Khmer empire from about 900AD, was mysteriously abandoned about 500 years ago.

It has long been believed the Khmers deserted the city after a Thai army ransacked it, but University of Sydney archaeologists working the site say a water crisis was the real reason it was left to crumble.

"It now appears the city was abandoned during the transition from the medieval warm period to the little ice age," Associate Professor of Archaeology Roland Fletcher said in a statement released by the university.

[Vehl]

5. The River Saraswati still lives on, as Goddess Saraswati

Thank you for posting this interesting link. As someone who loves history/archeology, and as someone from the subcontinent, the Indus Civilization is of particular interest to me.

Even though the civilization collapsed about 4000 years ago, a lot of it still lives on in the subcontinents culture/religion. The River Saraswati which nurtured the main Indus Cities (albeit I hasten to add that the Indus civilization spanned a much greater area, and other rivers than the Saraswati alone) might have dried away ( most probably due to tectonic shifts in the Himalayas from which it originated) but it still lives on as the Goddess Saraswati amongst the people of the subcontinent(and even among those in countries as far away as Japan)

The Indus civilization seems to have had mother goddesses , along with male deities who strike strikingly yogic postures. Thus it's not surprising that these survived the collapse of the Indus civilization.

In Hinduism, Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge, music, arts and science.

The name Saraswati comes from saras (meaning "flow&quot and wati (meaning "she who has ...&quot , i.e., "she who has flow". So, Saraswati is symbol of knowledge; its flow (or growth) is like a river, and knowledge is supremely alluring, like a beautiful woman. Saraswati is the guardian of Earth

Every single Hindu prays/invokes Saraswati. She is considered the patron goddess of learning and knowledge thus is particularly popular amongst students and scholars. One of the largest(if not the largest) festival in Hinduism is the Navaratri ( nine nights), which honors the 3 goddesses and Saraswati is celebrated for 3 days. With the spread of Hinduism, and Buddhism Saraswati spread the other parts of Asia, and is venerated to this day in those cultures.

[IMG][/IMG]

In China she is known as the white Tara

[IMG][/IMG]

In Japan she is known as Benzaiten

[IMG][/IMG]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzaiten


It's pretty cool that something which vanished nearly 4000 years ago still lives on in the memories and cultures of people both related and unrelated to the Indus Civilization.





PS:
You know something else which we use from the Indus civilization? Dice

[IMG][/IMG]

The amazing thing is, that these nearly 5000 year old dice had the exact arrangement of the holes/pits indicating the values on each face as the ones we use today!

[closeupready]

7. that IS interesting.

Thanks!

[Vehl]

11. you are welcome :) nt

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Thanks. Fascinating stuff.

I read a history of India a while ago. Every part of it was fascinating, but there's so much history there that my brain can only retain a small part of it.

[Vehl]

12. thank you

I'm an avid fan of world history/cultures so I tend to keep an eye out for such topics on GD thank you for posting this one.

As for the history of India, one of the best documentaries I've seen on it is called "The story of India" by BBC/PBS. In fact its once of the best BBC documentaries I've seen. Micheal wood, who is the host/editor of it does a fantastic job of trying to capture the history of India,especially its many regions/eras into a 6 episode documentary.Apart from being overly PC on some issues, he does an excellent job.



http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/

^^ most public libraries have this DVD, so if you want you can borrow from one of those

PS: I believe full episodes are available on Google videos(not you tube), but sadly they are not even 420p, let alone DVD quality.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2359467386775757720

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, DavidDvorkin.

[guardian]

9. I wonder what the carbon footprint

of the average Harappan was back then? Was the climate change due to natural or anthropogenic causes?

[sudopod]

10. The difference is the time scale involved.

The Indus civilization declined over a period of nine hundred years. From the perspective of a few generations of people, even long-lived modern people, something that winds down over the course of nine-hundred years would appear to be very permanent.

We, however, are seeing similar climactic changes happening in a span of less than a century.