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The new analysis of Indus Valley Civilization sites reveals a previously unsuspected east-to-west flow of urbanisation — as shown by these three maps of Indus sites between 4000 BC and 2500 BC. In 4000 BC, the black-coloured dot shows a single site in the Ghaggar-Hakra region, but 300 years later, new settlements have emerged to its immediate west. This westward movement and slow growth contradicts long-standing notions that Indus Valley urbanisation moved solely eastward. New Delhi, April 5: A study of hundreds of ancient Indus Valley civilisation sites has revealed previously unsuspected patterns of growth and decline that challenge a long-standing idea of a solely eastward-moving wave of Indus urbanisation. Researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), Chennai, combined data from archaeology, radiocarbon dating, and river flows to study how settlements around the Indus Valley region had evolved from around 7000 BC till 1000 BC. Their analysis of 1,874 Indus region settlements has shown that the Indus urbanisation had three epicentres — Mehrgarh in present-day Baluchistan, Gujarat, and sites along an ancient river called the Ghaggar-Hakra in Haryana and Punjab.