<Articles>The Indus Enigma : Contradiction and Key Evidence

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Other Title
  • <論説>インダス文明起源の問題 : 矛盾とその源
  • インダス文明起源の問題--矛盾とその源
  • インダス ブンメイ キゲン ノ モンダイ ムジュン ト ソノ ミナモト

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Description

Nearly eighty years of studies on the rise of the prehistoric Indus Valley civilization have only yielded an unfruitful and enigmatic theory that the Mature Harappan culture emerged without a break from the 'Pre-Harappan ' or the 'Early Harappan ' culture over the entire extension of the Valley. The viewpoint is primarily based on dubious factors such as the fact that the two kinds of superimposed strata at several sites, representing the 'Pre-Hrappan' culture or the 'Early Harappan' in the lower levels and the Mature Harappan in the upper, exist without any gap between them, or that the pottery from both of the cultures is generally homogeneous. The author, however, dwells on a clear break between the strata discernible at Kot Diji and Gumla in particular, and which is quite important for giving clues to solving the enigma that has emerged by ignoring a clear difference of pottery types between the two superimposed cultures that does not always represent a chronological continuity. The detailed examination of stratigraphical and pottery evidence clearly shows the break everywhere at the sites of stratigraphical superimposition. It also leads us to postulate that the Harappan culture grew up from its own seed in Upper Sind, not from the 'Pre-Harappan ' or the 'Early Harappan' complex that primarily existed in the northern Valley chronologically in parallel with the Harappan culture before its mature period. The 'Pre-Harappan', or the 'Early Harappan', culture was completely different from the outset from the Harappan and the discontinuity between the strata at the sites is therefore simply a result of the Harappans' occupation of the other cultures at the time that they burst into maturity and extended their power towards the northeast and the southeast.

Journal

  • 史林

    史林 74 (3), 403-436, 1991-05-01

    THE SHIGAKU KENKYUKAI (The Society of Historical Research), Kyoto University

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