In many parts of India, the Neolithic phase was followed by the emergence of Chalcolithic (copper- stone) cultures in which stone continued to be used side by side with copper.
Though, most of these cultures belong to a period after that of the Harappan culture they were much less advanced than the Harappan culture. They neither had any cities nor script. Thus the Indus civilisation, the first known civilisation in India, emerged earlier than other Chalcolithic cultures but had attained features hitherto unknown.
It is also known as Harappan culture after the name of a major site of this civilization, Harappa; it was discovery of Harappa in Punjab, a number of sites have been discovered showing the cultural expanse of the Harappans from the foothills of the Himalayas at Roper to the shores of Arabian Sea.
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It covered parts of the Punjab Sindh, Baluchistan, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the fringes of western Uttar Pradesh. “The area formed a triangle and accounted for about 12, 99,600 square kilometers which is larger than Pakistan and certainly bigger than ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. No other cultural zone in the third and second millennium BC in the world was as large as the Harappan zone” (R. S. Sharma, 1977).
Of over 250 Harappan sites, only six can be regarded as cites. The two most important cities were Harappa in Punjab and Mohanjodaro in Sindh, both forming parts of Pakistan. Situated at a distance of 483 kilometers they were linked together by the Indus. A third city lay at Chanudaro about 130 km south of Mohenjo-Daro in Sindh, and a fourth at Lothal in Gujarat at the head of the Gulf of Cambay.
A fifth city lay at Kalibangan in northern Rajasthan. A sixth called Banwali is situated in Hissar district in Haryana. “Harappa and Mohanjodaro stand out like twin capitals in a single empire among a number of sites” (Gordon Childe, 1952).
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The Indus civilization is remarkable for its uniformity and standardization in weights, measures, ceramics, architecture, town planning and in other arts and crafts. As Allchin(1968) rightly comments, this uniformity appears all the more imposing when one considers that the culture extended over more than a million square kilometers.
What this uniformity reflects, whether it was an empire or a trading zone, can only be a speculation. But such uniformity, almost amounting to monotony, in a third millennium BC context is indeed unique. Recent studies, however, are bringing out a good deal of regional variation.
Most of the sites where the twin city dwelling pattern has been identified are referred to as urban metropolis. The main sites in this group are as follows:
1. Harappa on Ravi in Punjab, Pakistan.
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2. Chanhu-daro on Indus in Nawabab Shah, Pakistan.
3. Mohan-jo-daro on Indus in Larkana, Pakistan.
4. Lothal in Sabarmati delta, Gujarat, India.
5. Surkotada in Kutch. Gujarat, India.
6. Kalibangan in Ganganagar, Rajasthan, India.
7. Banawali in Hissar, Haryana, India.