Prehistory

Mehrgarh, (7000-5500 BCE), on the Kachi plain of Balochistan, is an important Neolithic site discovered in 1974, with early evidence of farming and herding,[12] and dentistry.[3] Early residents lived in mud brick houses, stored grain in granaries, fashioned tools with copper ore, cultivated barley, wheat, jujubes and dates, and herded sheep, goats and cattle, while later residents (5500-2600 BCE) engaged in crafts, including flint knapping, tanning, bead production, and metalworking. The site was occupied continuously until about 2600 BCE,[13] but climatic changes between 2600 and 2000 BCE caused the area to become more arid. Mehrgarh was abandoned in favour of the Indus valley,[14] where a new civilization was in the early stages of development.[15]

The Indus Valley civilization developed between 3300-1700 BCE on the banks of the Indus River and at its peak had as many as five million inhabitants in hundreds of settlements extending as far as the Arabian Sea, present-day southern and eastern Afghanistan, southeastern Iran and the Himalayas.[16] The major urban centers were at Dholavira, Kalibangan, Harappa, Lothal, Mohenjo-daro, and Rakhigarhi, as well as an offshoot called the Kulli culture (2500-2000 BCE) in southern Balochistan, which had similar settlements, pottery and other artifacts. The Indus Valley civilisation has been tentatively identified as proto-Dravidian, but this cannot be confirmed until the Indus script is fully deciphered.[17] The civilization collapsed abruptly around 1700 BCE, possible due to a cataclysmic earthquake or the drying up of the Ghaggar-Hakra river or due to the invasion of Aryans.

In the early part of the second millennium BCE, Indo-European tribes from Central Asia or the southern Russian steppes migrated into the region,[18] and settled in the Sapta Sindhu area between the Kabul River and the Upper Ganges-Yamuna rivers.[19] According to more recent thinking, the Aryans entered this region gradually, as infiltrators, not as forceful invaders. The invasion/infiltration theory, however, has been hotly debated by a school of mainly Indian scholars and several arguments have been made by them regarding Aryans being natives of Indus valley. The resulting Vedic culture lasted until the middle of the first millennium BCE when there were marked linguistic, cultural and political changes.[20] During the Vedic culture, the hymns of the Rigveda were composed and the foundations of Hinduism were laid. The city of Taxila, in northern Pakistan, became important in Hinduism (and later in Buddhism); according to Hindu tradition, the Mahābhārata epic was first recited at Taxila at the snake sacrifice Yagna of King Janamejaya, one of the heroes of the story.[21]