DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

07 September, 2019
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Indus Valley settlers had a distinct genetic lineage.

GS-I: Indus Valley settlers had a distinct genetic lineage

News

Throwing fresh light on the Indus Valley Civilisation, a study of DNA from Skeletal remains excavated from the Harappan cemetery at Rakhigarhi.

Background

The history of India begins with the birth of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), also known as Harappan Civilization.

It flourished around 2,500 BC, in the western part of South Asia, in contemporary Pakistan and Western India.

The Indus Valley was home to the largest of the four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China.

In 1920s, the Archaeological Department of India carried out excavations in the Indus valley wherein the ruins of the two old cities, viz. Mohenjodaro and Harappa were unearthed.

In 1924, John Marshall, Director-General of the ASI, announced the discovery of a new civilisation in the Indus valley to the world.

Town Planning and Structures

The Harappan culture was distinguished by its system of town planning.

Harappa and Mohenjodaro each had its own citadel or acropolis, which was possibly occupied by members of the ruling class.

Below the citadel in each city lay a lower town containing brick houses, which were inhabited by the common people.

The remarkable thing about the arrangement of the houses in the cities is that they followed the grid system.

Granaries constituted an important part of the Harappan cities.

The use of burnt bricks in the Harappan cities is remarkable, because in the contemporary buildings of Egypt mainly dried bricks were used.

The drainage system of Mohenjodaro was very impressive.

In almost all cities every big or small house had its own courtyard and bathroom.

Origins of farming

In Europe,ancient-DNA studoes have shown that agriculture tended to spread through an influx of people with ancestary in Anatolia. New study shows a similar dynamic in Iran and Turan where the researchers found that Anatolian-related ancestary and farming arrived around the same time.

Researchers had successfully sequenced the first genome of an individual from Harappa and combining it with archaeological data, found that hunter-gatherers of South Asia had an independent origin, and authored the settled way of life in this part of the world.

They do not contain genome from either the Steppe region or ancient Iranian farmers.

The genetic continuity from hunter gatherer to modern times is visible in the DNA results.”

The same hunter gatherer communities developed into agricultural communities and formed the Harappan civilization.

The researchers also suggest that there was a movement of people from east to west as the Harapan People’s presense is evident at sites like Gonur in Turkmenistan and Sahr-i-Sokhta in Iran.

Source: The Hindu

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