Indus Valley Civilization: Crash Course World History #2

The people of the Indus Valley were trading with Mesopotamians as early as

3500 BC

Characteristics of a Civilization.

1. Food Surplus 2. Specialization of Labor 3. Trade 4. Centralized Government

The cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro had

A centralized draining system that used gravity to carry waste out of the city into large sewer ditches.

In 1750 BC the Indus Valley

Declined until it faded into obscurity.

There are three theories of why the Indus valley faded into obscurity.

1. Conquest (People of the caucuses over ran them) 2. Environmental Disaster (Destroying their own environment) 3. Earthquake (An earthquake changes the course of the rivers and caused them to dry up)

The Indus Valley Flourished in around in

3000 BC

The Indus Valley also produced seals used as identification markers on goods and clay tablets with some strange pictures such as

A man with a water buffalo horns on his head while sitting cross legged between a tiger and a bull. We still do not know what this means.

In the Indus Valley there is very little record of

Any warfare of weapons.

In Mohenjo Daro the largest building was the

Great Bath

The seals from the Indus Valley let us know they traded because they were found in __________. Also we have found Bronze in the Indus Valley which was not native to the region and traded for this with ________.

Mesopotamia and Cotton Cloth.

We know the people of the Indus valley did not

Morph into the current residents of that area, Hindu Indians or Muslim Pakistanis.

The Indus Valley was located in the flood plain of Indus and Sarawati

The Indus Valley was a very good place for civilization because the rivers flooded reliably twice a year.

Rivers were associated with many ancient civilizations because

They give a water supply and when these flood it supplies nutrient rich silt.

The best known Cities of the Indus Valley are Harappa and Mohenjo Daro with

dense multi story buildings built out of uniformly sized bricks along perpendicular streets.

The Indus Valley was the

largest of ancient civilizations with over 1500 sites.