Trade+and+Economics+in+the+Indus+Valley

Small World:
How Trading Abroad Built the Indus Valley Civilization //By: Alexander Carson//

Main Argument:
From 2600-1700 BC, the Mature Harappan period of the Indus Valley Civilization marked the height of one of the first major civilizations on the planet. The Indus Valley Civilization was a highly complex and advanced civilization, achieving feats of architecture and engineering that were unmatched for thousands of years after even by “modern” civilizations. What was it that built a civilization such as this, though? I intend to argue that it was the presence of other civilizations, particularly the civilization in Mesopotamia, that ensured the rise of the Indus Valley by the trade opportunities they provided. In order to argue this I must first argue and show that the Indus Valley Civilization did indeed trade with other civilizations, that trade was a fundamental part of the establishment of the Mature Harappan Civilization, and that the people of the Indus considered the efficient transaction of trade and the procurement of trade goods to be critical to their society through the amount of resources in terms of both capital, manpower, and thought were contributed toward establishing infrastructure and technology to increase their capacity for trade.



(Above in order of left to right: The Dock at Lothal, the Warehouse at Lothal, and an Indus Valley Seal)

Proof of Trade:
Of course, any arguments of trade being a central part of the Indus Valley Civilization can not proceed without first demonstrating that trade actually occurred. The evidence of extensive trade lies in the archaeological record of the Indus Valley Civilization's infrastructure, most notably at the city of Lothal, and in some few cases even in the civilizations it traded with. I argue that the Indus Valley did indeed carry out extensive trade with its neighbors, and that the archaeological record shows that trade not only happened, but was a major part of sustaining the Indus Valley civilization as shown through the resources invested into infrastructure necessary for trading.

The most compelling evidence for trade in the archaeological record of the Indus Valley is the city of Lothal near the Arabian Sea. Lothal, by all evidence, served as an enormously important city in the Indus Valley and the entirety of the Near East. At Lothal, archaeologists have unearthed a large dock complex capable of hosting and sending off boats capable of minor crossings of the Arabian Sea (Mulchandani 199, 1-2). This dock is extremely advanced, hosting an inlet channel capable of drainage and equipped with lock gates to ensure a safe water level (Mulchandani 1999, 1-2). We know firsthand how extraordinarily built the dock at Lothal was, as boats as late as 1850 were still able to use the facility. While the dock does not necessarily prove that the Indus people were a seafaring group as the dock could have been built specifically for receiving foreign ships, it does prove that they participated in the sea trade of the day with civilizations like those in Mesopotamia (During Caspers 1994, 33). Connected to the dock was a large warehouse complex where goods were stored and prepared for departure (Mulchandani 1999, 3). This sea trade was not only vastly important to Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, but also to the civilizations such as Dilmun in modern Bahrain which were in between the two civilizations and did business with and between both (Potts 1993, 379-380). I argue that Lothal was a city built with trade aforethought with regards to location and architectural engineering. The Indus people went to great lengths to ensure the quality of this trading port, lengths great enough to ensure its integrity for more than 3000. This is the mark of a civilization which has placed a great emphasis on trading infrastructure and its integrity.

Additional signs of trade between the Indus people and their neighbors are scattered throughout the Near East. The most notable of these are the Indus seals, used to identify and bind trading good, that have served as our primary example off the Indus writing system. 30 of these seals have been unearthed in Mesopotamia (Kramer 1964, 44), proving beyond a doubt that the Indus Valley directly or indirectly did trade with them. While we can not read the inscriptions on the seals, similar seals have been seen and interpreted in Mesopotamia itself, and the purpose can be inferred. Whether this practice was developed individually by each culture or as a result of close contact remains a mystery, but it makes a clear case for the assertion that it is a certainty that the Indus Valley conducted trade with its neighbors.



(Above left to right: A cotton plant and Mesopotamian architecture.)

Built on Trade:
Once we've established that the Indus Valley did, indeed, carry out trade, the discussion of the Indus Valley Civilization's trade economy-proper has to begin where a large part of the trade itself began. For the entirety of its existence, the Indus Valley Civilization relied heavily on agriculture to sustain its population. Many crops were grown in the Indus Valley for food and other purposes, but one crop in particular changed the way the people of the Indus Valley lived forever. During the early excavation of Indus Valley sites, archaeologists found what has been determined to be the oldest samples of cotton thread ever found (Shaikh-Ashfaque 1981, 15-16). In the years that followed, it has been determined that the Indus Valley was likely the original place from where cotton was grown and spread throughout the Eurasian continent. With the many and extensive uses of the material across the ancient world, the polities of the Indus Valley that existed before the Mature Harappan period were simply not able to handle the demands of the rest of the world along with their own when it came to cotton and were forced to expand in order to handle this demand.

It has been argued that a “cotton rush” (Shaikh-Ashfaque 1981, 16), an economic boom relating to one valuable resource mimicking the tobacco rush that populated the British Americas and the gold rush that populated our own American west, is responsible for pushing forth the rapid growth that marked the transition of the Indus Valley civilization from a group of small city states with a vague, common culture into one of the largest and most expansive civilizations of its day, with trade links across the ancient near east to Sumer in Mesopotamia among other, smaller areas. While this explosion of growth came after a long and slow building process, there was a rapid urbanization which lasted roughly 100 to 150 years prior to the beginning of the Mature Harappan (Possehl 1990, 261-262), implying that something very profitable had come about that demanded expansion of the civilization. In this case, it was likely the trade of cotton in particular along with other trading goods. This is an argument that I agree with and would also make. I argue that it is no coincidence that the beginning of the upward surge in urbanization that marked the two centuries prior to the beginning of the Mature Harappan period referenced by many scholars coincided with the rise of a stable Sumerian civilization with which it has been proven the people of the Indus carried out trade with. I argue that it was both the wealth that came flowing into the Indus Valley Civilization and the economic pressure to expand that wealth through the production of more cotton and other trade goods that led to the foundation of civilization built around the ability to carry out extensive trade with foreign civilizations in order to keep more and more wealth flowing into the Indus Civilization.



(Above left to right: An Indus kiln for firing beads and clay and Indus Valley beads.)

Tools of the Trade:
As shown before, while important, cotton was not the only product of Indus Valley trade. From the founding of Harappa in 3300 as a small, riverside village, the people of the Indus Valley had been carrying out the crafts necessary for trade. Many of these crafts fulfilled basic needs of the population, but others carried out in Harappa through the ages trended more toward crafts and vocations traditionally involved in trade. The evidence is shown in one industry in particular that was a traditional source of trade in the Indus Valley at large and in Harappa. The vocation of bead-making offers an insightful portrait into the amount of effort that went into creating the trade products that, I argue, formed the basis of the development of the Indus Valley civilization and for sustaining its economy through its height. The cultural and economic priorities of complex societies can often be determined by the amount of time and resources they dedicate to a certain activity or practice. Just as religious civilizations may dedicate large amounts of resources toward building a large temple, I argue that the Indus Valley Civilization dedicated a large amount of their resources and effort toward the production of high-quality trade products because of their reliance on trade.

Some of the clearest evidence of the effort the people of the Indus Valley put into the basis of their trade was in the seemingly-simple industry of making bead necklaces. Studies on bead-making have been implemented across the Indus Valley and nearby regions (Kenoyer 1997, 266), and with modern equipment archaeologists have been able to develop a fairly clear picture of a complex and detailed process by which the Indus Valley in particular made beads for trading. The process of making beads in the Indus Valley, which was refined to its height during Period 1 of the Mature Harappan Period, began with the collection of the various types of stone involved in making them. These types of stone generally split into hard stones such as carnelian or agate and soft, talcose stones. Even early in the process of preparing collected stone for processing, technology which stood as advanced for the time was already in use. Talcose stone required hardening or glazing in high-temperature kilns (Kenoyer 1997, 266). These kilns required a temperature of 940 degrees Celsius to glaze and harden into a usable form, a process that would have required much effort in gathering the proper amount of firewood and in producing material which could resist and contain the fire in the kilns. Harder stones had to be drilled in order to be used, a difficult and time-consuming process that will be elaborated on in more detail shortly.

Industrial waste from the process also bore marks reminiscent of modern saws in their use. While these saws were particularly effective, likely being poorly made and suffering from the softness of natural copper as a metal, they indicate a technological advancement that has continued to be used to this day. Further excavations have provided evidence of saws in the Indus Valley of increasing effectiveness judging from the improved organization of the saw marks found on manufacturing waste (Kenoyer 1997, 266-267). One such saw, made of a copper alloy, was found at Mound AE at Harappa itself. This provides evidence of a civilization that saw industrial processes as a high enough priority to continually attempt to improve them and create better products with less waste. This process was mimicked across multiple parts of the bead-making process, and quite clearly in the process of drilling holes in the harder beads using new techniques. Over the course of its history, the Indus Valley Civilization developed multiple methods and techniques of boring into the stones used in bead-trading ranging from bow drills to ones made of copper (Kenoyer 1997, 270-271). The variety of drilling methods found is indicative of a civilization that valued practices like bead-making very highly, highly enough to dedicate time and resources toward improving the process.

While discussion of the bead-making practices of the Indus Valley Civilization may just seem like a description of the process read from a compilation of reports and research already done, it's the cultural implications of the artifacts and their processes that were unearthed that bear the real significance of the foundation and the continuation of the Mature Harappan Indus Valley Civilization. The process of making beads illustrates for us very clearly that the Indus Valley Civilization considered the processes by which it created its trade goods to be very important. The amount of time and resources that went into the finished product, not to mention the improvement of the processes themselves, was large. This priority on the trade products it produced, I argue, was a result of the necessity of these practices in order to maintain a decent standard of living for the people within the Indus Valley Civilization and reflective of the trade that built and sustained the civilization for hundreds of years at its height.



(Above left to right: A map of the Indus Valley Civilization and a map of Sumer.)

Conclusion:
It has been said that one can determine what a society considers is important based on how big the buildings are. Medieval Europeans spent generations building grand cathedrals while Egyptian Pharaohs built massive tombs that reached toward the heavens. While this is an oversimplification, the amount of resources any society invests in a particular aspect of its own operation is quite likely a good indicator of how the people who live in it live their lives and what they consider to be important to them. As I've argued, the Indus people were a civilization that was built on the practice of trade with other civilizations of the day. Almost every aspect of their society, from the cities they built to the technology they developed, was to ensure that they could create high-quality and profitable trade products for the civilizations which I have demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the Indus people traded with. There are many factors in the rise of a complex society, and in the case of the Indus Valley, the most important was the societies that it shared the world with.

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