Repository logo
 

Landscapes of Urbanization and De-Urbanization: A Large-Scale Approach to Investigating the Indus Civilization's Settlement Distributions in Northwest India.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

Survey data play a fundamental role in studies of social complexity. Integrating the results from multiple projects into large-scale analyses encourages the reconsideration of existing interpretations. This approach is essential to understanding changes in the Indus Civilization's settlement distributions (ca. 2600-1600 b.c.), which shift from numerous small-scale settlements and a small number of larger urban centers to a de-nucleated pattern of settlement. This paper examines the interpretation that northwest India's settlement density increased as Indus cities declined by developing an integrated site location database and using this pilot database to conduct large-scale geographical information systems (GIS) analyses. It finds that settlement density in northwestern India may have increased in particular areas after ca. 1900 b.c., and that the resulting landscape of de-urbanization may have emerged at the expense of other processes. Investigating the Indus Civilization's landscapes has the potential to reveal broader dynamics of social complexity across extensive and varied environments.

Description

Keywords

Databases, GIS, Indus Civilization, landscape archaeology, settlement archaeology, urbanization

Journal Title

J Field Archaeol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0093-4690
2042-4582

Volume Title

43

Publisher

Informa UK Limited
Sponsorship
European Research Council (648609)
ERC