The term Harappan is sometimes applied to the Indus Civilisation after its type site Harappa , the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. The early Harappan cultures were populated from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named after Mehrgarh , in Balochistan , Pakistan. The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning , baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy.
Eventually it also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise and to disperse its population to the east. The Indus civilisation is named after the Indus river system in whose alluvial plains the early sites of the civilisation were identified and excavated. Following a tradition in archaeology, the civilisation is sometimes referred to as the Harappan, after its type site , Harappa , the first site to be excavated in the s; this is notably true of usage employed by the Archaeological Survey of India after India's independence in The term "Ghaggar-Hakra" figures prominently in modern labels applied to the Indus civilisation on account of a good number of sites having been found along the Ghaggar-Hakra River in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.
Recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, described in the Rigveda as a snow-fed river, the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers, which became seasonal around the time that the civilisation diminished, approximately 4, years ago. The Indus Valley Civilisation was roughly contemporary with the other riverine civilisations of the ancient world: Ancient Egypt along the Nile , Mesopotamia in the lands watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris , and China in the drainage basin of the Yellow River and the Yangtze.
By the time of its mature phase, the civilisation had spread over an area larger than the others, which included a core of 1, kilometres mi up the alluvial plain of the Indus and its tributaries. In addition, there was a region with disparate flora, fauna, and habitats, up to ten times as large, which had been shaped culturally and economically by the Indus.
During its height the civilisation extended from Balochistan in the west to western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from northeastern Afghanistan in the north to Gujarat state in the south.
