Screenshot from Video “Emergence of First Farming Culture in South Asia Neolithic Mehrgarh”

We have examined Mehrgarh before in Posts 35 and 36 and now will examine Mehrgarh Period III 4800 BC – 3500 BC, the period wherein the excavation transitions from ceramic Neolithic to late Chalcolithic. The later end of this period at Mehrgarh (3800 BC) is of special interest to me in writing my forthcoming novel. The chart above presents the claim for Mehrgarh i.e. this city started as a Neolithic Settlement and remained in the general area from about 7000 BC into the 3rd millennium BC, whereupon the city appears to have moved to a nearby fortified location.

As an author, I will use the fiction writer’s R.U.E. rule, “resist the urge to explain,” and let others do so, for I have found a sequence of video presentations that delivers a good understanding of the Mehrgarh facts, starting top level and drilling down into a lively, charming discussion by three academic ladies in a format more informal than the OI and Penn videos, which are excellent in their own right.

Here’s my recommended sequence:

(1) Overview (1:02 min): Mehrgarh (Balochistan): World’s Oldest City 7,000 BC

(2) Material Culture (4:36 min): World’s First Urban Settlement: Mehrgarh (Balochistan) Part I

(3) Google Pictures of Mergarth Material Culture.

(4) Video Lecture (11:56 min): Mehrgarh

(5) 3-Person Academic Discussion (29:33 min): 1.4.A.1 Emergence of First Farming Culture in South Asia Neolithic Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh III in 3,800 BC is a technological and cultural peer of the late Ubaid in Southern Mesopotamia at that time, which facilitates what I have in mind in the plot of the novel I’m working on. However, at this point, I continue to believe neither Mehrgarh not the Indus Valley Civilization kept up with the emerging Uruk culture. However, after the big Mesopotamian flood around 2,900 BC, I think Mesopotamia fell back into peerage with the emerging Harappan culture. Since the Sumerian culture is historically documented in cuneiform, and the Harappan culture is not, we may never know more about Harappa unless its script is deciphered.

Thanks for visiting,

R. E. J. Burke