Research Task: Ancient India

For this task, we have to show evidence of our research skills by picking a theme out at random, my theme was "Ancient India". Since I don't know a lot about this subject the research I did was essential, I went about this by googling for articles on the said theme, and chronicling the area I found interesting: the history of India leading to 1500 BC.

The first thing I found out was how the landmass we know as India actually collided with Asia back 50 million years ago, this collision lead to the two mountain landscapes of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. Nearby to the Hindu Kush was the Indus River, an essential part of the growth of early Indian civilization; evidence of homosapien life in the Indus valley suggest it being one of the earliest dating back to 70,000 years. Slowly this life settled into the Indus Valley civilization and began to trade with other ones such as Mesopotamia at around 3200 BC.

Indus Civilisation is perhaps one of the largest ancient civilizations, as large cities where planned and built out of hard bricks made from mud, that were heated in a kiln oven. These large cities were built in the form of a grid, and featured roads with dug out wells for transporting water. These roads where also used to build houses upon, some even having multiple stories and a water drain system. The most famous example of this is Mohenjo-daro.

Mohenjo-daro Excavation Site

At around 1700 BC, the activity and culture in the Indus valley began to decline, although there is no clear evidence as to why, there is a popular theory: some believe a natural disaster forced out the natives or even changed the landscape in such a way that they had no choice but to migrate like an earthquake or the flooding of the Indus River, another theory is that they were driven out by an invasion but there is not a lot of evidence of a military presence. It is also unknown as to what the social ladder was like for this ancient Indus Civilization, or what they believed in, however some texts have made some historians believe that they worshiped a goddess, but the lack of a translation for the ancient language has made this uncertain. By 1500 BC these giant cities had been abandoned, however it is suspected that when this happened the Indo-Europeans moved in and where known as the Aryans; the Aryans have been suspected to have brought the horse, their religion (some believe is early Hinduism) and culture.

I personally found this section of ancient India fascinating, as there is a lot of mystery behind the Indus Valley civilization and their cities, and why they declined. It also has puzzled many historians, and given a blurred picture on what that society was like. In regards to the task I feel I have met the requirements, and showed my ability to research a given subject.

Bibliography:

Web Articles Researched:

https://sites.google.com/site/1ancientcivilizationsforkids/ancient-india (Accessed 02/10/15)

http://www.ancient.eu/india/ (Accessed 02/10/15)

Photos Used:

"Mohenjo-daro Excavation site": http://www.ancient.eu/image/2130/ (02/10/15)