Harappan cities and Chalcolithic villages

Bronze Age city without a deciphered king-list — reconstruct from drains, weights and graves.

• c. 2600–1900 BCE; Indus–Saraswati belt into Gujarat. Grid, drainage, baked brick, weights, seals, craft zones, long trade.
• Dholavira water and signboard; Lothal dock and beads; Rakhigarhi scale; Kalibangan fire altars — Indian-site PYQs.
• Society: orderly, occupational, weak palace-king evidence; script unread.
• Origin: Mehrgarh farming (7th millennium) and pre-Harappan levels — mostly indigenous with West Asian contacts, not a mass migration story.
• Decline ~1900 BCE: climate and river stress in current teaching, not a single Aryan battle scene.

• c. 3000–1000 BCE: copper plus stone, village agro-pastoral, not full urban bronze everywhere.
• Ahar–Banas (black-and-red, Balathal wall, copper, bulls); Kayatha; Malwa (Navdatoli); Jorwe (Inamgaon, Daimabad bronzes, infant urns).
• Khetri copper, beads, shells; Deccan pastoral tilt; courtyard houses.