Disease and trauma within collapsing Indus Civilisation

Past Horizons ^ | 12-25-2013

[Renfield]

During the third millennium BCE, the Indus Civilisation flourished in what is now northwest India and Pakistan. Between 2200-1900 BCE the culture was characterised by long-distance exchange networks, carefully planned urban settlements such as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro that had sophisticated sanitation facilities, standardised weights and measures, and a sphere of influence that extended over a million square kilometres of territory.

The culture was seemingly at its height when the end came (collapse attributed to climatic change) but recent research published in both the open access journal PLoS ONE and an earlier 2012 article in the International Journal of Palaeopathology has expanded on this hypothesis. A climatic collapse

Recent palaeoclimate reconstructions from the Beas River Valley demonstrates hydro-climatic stress due to a weakened monsoon system may have impacted urban centres like Harappa by the end of the third millennium BCE. However, the impact of environmental change was compounded by disruptions to the regional interaction sphere.

Lead author in both these studies, Gwen Robbins Schug, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Appalachian State University, explained, “we assessed evidence for palaeopathology to infer the biological consequences of climate change and socio-economic disruption in the post-urban period at Harappa”...

[jimtorr]

Actually, there was a very widespread climate disruption, streching from southern Europe, through the eastern Med region, through India.

Nations and cultures all over collapsed. Egypt, Old Babylon, Mycenaean Greeks and others all fell apart in roughly the same time.

[fatez]

An interaction sphere is an area that different cultures interact with trade, ideas, etc. The eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia are the earliest and best known. The term is used mostly in Anthropology and Economics. Globalization is the idea that all regions are now interrelated. Does this make sense?

[SES1066]

An interaction sphere is an area that different cultures interact with trade, ideas, etc.

Thank you for the response and I guess it could be expected for a professional journal to use 'terms of the art', but that one got my goat. You got to admit that it does sound like one of those buzz word generators without the background knowledge you brought forward. Thank you for the info.

[fatez]

Sure thing, it actually is a little more involved, but that is what it is in essence. Happy New Year!!!

[colorado tanker]

Two words. Shrimp and grits.

[colorado tanker]

It’s too bad there is so much pressure for academics to work in a “climate change” angle to their research, but, hey, she got funded.

[Little Bill]

I think, with out any proof, that it went like this: Drought, sharp swords. These thing seem to go together, balm can give a better time line.

[colorado tanker]

The real "climate change" crisis will be the onset of the next ice age when the glaciers start moving south, chewing up arable land and populations start moving south. Something tells me the northerners won't be welcomed with open arms. Sharp swords, indeed.

Glad I won't be here to see it.

[blam]

[Little Bill]

Around the time we speak of the Sargonite Empire went South and there was a 300 year drought in the Middle East. Blam had some research about this but I can naught remember the finer points.

[Little Bill]

That Battle showed that Nappy had hid head up hid A##.

[SunkenCiv]

It’s a little bit of lip service. :’)