This book approaches the archaeology of the Harappan culture of Pakistan and India from the view point of the early state. It attempts to tease out information on the mobilization of labour, the organization of production, the direction of overseas trade by a newly formed elite, and the management of scarce water resources by the rulers. It discusses the environment and productivity of the culture, the sequence of excavations, early ideas of the civilization as quintessentially Indian, evidence for warfare and the hand of the state behind certain kinds of settlement morphology and artefactual equipment. It asks whether the residents of Mohenjo-daro lived in kin-group clusters, and attempts to explain, through cross-cultural analogy, why the citadel sites are located where they are. A new idea on sailing routes is tentatively suggested, and it is argued that it was elite intervention and management that secured both floodwater supplies at Dholavira and some degree of urban sanitation at Mohenjo-daro. Multiple views of the reasons for the end of the civilization are discussed in the final section of the book.
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