Indus era at least 8,000 years old, not 5,500; culminated due to climate change!

Image courtesy: Sanjay Hadkar/ Times of India

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Due to a recent revelation made by scientists from IIT-Kharagpur and Archaeological Survey of India, time has arrived to rewrite history textbooks.

Experts have found evidence of the Indus Valley Civilization being at least 8,000 years old and not 5,500 years old .

In addition, researchers have found proof of a pre-Harappan civilization that existed for at least 1,000 years before this.

As per a report published in Times of India, this may force a global rethink on the timelines of the so-called 'cradles of civilization'.

The scientists called climate change the reasson behind the ending of the civilization 3,000 years ago.

"We have recovered perhaps the oldest pottery from the civilization. We used a technique called 'optically stimulated luminescence' to date pottery shards of the Early Mature Harappan time to nearly 6,000 years ago and the cultural levels of pre-Harappan Hakra phase as far back as 8,000 years," said Anindya Sarkar, head of the department of geology and geophysics at IIT-Kgp.

The researchers believe that the Indus Valley Civilization spread over a vast expanse of India — stretching to the banks of the now "lost" Saraswati river or the Ghaggar-Hakra river - but this has not been studied enough because what we know so far is based on British excavations. "At the excavation sites, we saw preservation of all cultural levels right from the pre-Indus Valley Civilization phase (9000-8000 BC) through what we have categorised as Early Harappan (8000-7000BC) to the Mature Harappan times," said Sarkar.