Episode 3 of The History of the Indian Sub-continent series takes us to the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). Our panel journeys from the banks of the Oxus River to the Deccan plateau. We connect the genetic and archaeological dots, speculate about people whose scripts we are yet to decipher, talk about what they did for a living, their towns, and what are the missing blocks in our understanding of that age. The Dancing girl from Harappa makes an appearance as do textiles and we ask if the great bath of Mohenjo Daro was really the great bath or was it something else.
Joining Maneesh Taneja in this conversation are Razib Khan, Gaurav Lele, Mukunda Raghvan, and Shrikantha Krishnamacharya.
We look forward to your comments and feedback.
Speakers & their Twitter handles: Razib Khan – @razibkhan, Gaurav Lele- @gaurav_lele, Mukunda Raghvan- @raghman36, Shrikanth Krishnamachry – @shrikanth_krish and Maneesh Taneja- @maneesht
You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
Links to the previous podcasts: Episode 1; Episode 2;
Also, find this supplementary blog post: Some miscellaneous points about Indian Prehistory
Links to Sources/Reference Material:
Harappa.com is arguably the best source of all information about the IVC.
- https://razib.substack.com/
- https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/
- https://scholar.harvard.edu/vagheesh/home
- https://razib.substack.com/p/podcast-countdown-to-2021-day-2-vagheesh
- India genetics – Gene Expression (gnxp.com)
- Reconstructing Indian Population History (nih.gov)
- Genetic Evidence for Recent Population Mixture in India (nih.gov)
- The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia (nih.gov)
- An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers – PubMed (nih.gov)
- Interview with Iravatham Mahadevan
- Jonathan Kenoyer on Indus Valley textiles
- Jonathan Kenoyer on Indus script
- Michel Danino on Indus cities
- Razib podcast with Vageesh Narasimhan
- Manasataramgini blog on writing in Early India
- Upinder Singh – Ancient India
- Romila Thapar – early India
- RS Sharma India’s Ancient Past
- Killing the priest-king ( Adam Green)
- Most of Razib Khan’s blogs and Substack
- Michael Witzel. http://michaelwitzel.org/
- Michel Danino. https://bit.ly/3yhJIZ0
- Asko Parpola – Roots of Hinduism
- Dandekar BORI – Lectures on Hinduism
- Irawati Karve – Hindu society/Kinship and other works
- Horse Wheel Language – David Anthony
- Babylon – Paul Krizawzek