July 16, 2024 • 36 mins
What if we told you the ancient Indus Valley civilization had a trade network as sophisticated as a modern-day global economy? On this episode of the History of Money, Banking, and Trade podcast, we unravel the secrets of the Harappans, who flourished around 3300 BCE in what is now Pakistan and northwest India. Join me, Mike D, as we journey back in time to discover the organized urban planning, central authority, and peaceful society of the Indus Valley, all without the typical hallmarks of kings or warfare. We'll also trace their origins to the early agricultural settlement of Mehrgarh around 7000 BCE, highlighting their farming practices and the surprising absence of metallurgy.
Explore with us the extensive trade networks that connected the Indus Valley to ancient powerhouses in Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, despite the challenges of a civilization without deciphered written records. We’ll spotlight the ancient port of Lothal, famous for its docks and crucial role in international trade, and discuss how this interconnected society might have relied on a sophisticated system of credits rather than barter or coinage. From agricultural products to jewelry, the variety of traded goods paints a vivid picture of a vibrant and complex economic system. With insights from William J. Bernstein’s "A Splendid Exchange," we'll challenge modern biases and uncover the speculative yet fascinating nature of these ancient trade systems. Don’t miss this enlightening episode as we piece together the intricate puzzle of the Indus Valley civilization.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome podcast listener.
I am Mike D and this is theHistory of Money, banking and
Trade podcast.
My goal is to expand yourknowledge of the history and
evolution of trade, along withmoney, banking and credit, from
ancient civilizations all theway to the present.
I truly hope you find theseepisodes to be informative and
entertaining.
(00:24):
Now, I'm not a historian but,like Dan Collin likes to say,
I'm a fan of history.
For this episode, I wanted tocontinue looking at the ancients
of the ancients.
What I mean by this is ourancient civilizations of the
Greeks and the Assyrians wouldhave looked at Dynasty Zero of
(00:45):
the Egyptian Empire as anancient civilization as well,
but as Dynasty Zero was formingup, we also see another ancient
civilization to the east thatwas also flourishing.
I also wanted to talk aboutthis civilization because I
brought them up several timesand, more importantly, I just
don't think enough people talkabout the Indus Valley as we go
(01:08):
through this series.
I think you'll kind ofunderstand why.
Unfortunately, there isn't asmuch information as we'd like
surrounding these various cities, but either way, I thought it'd
be a nice region of the worldto explore, as it ultimately was
one of the earliestcivilizations to form up upon
the Indian subcontinent.
(01:29):
The Indus Valley civilizationwas formed in modern day
Pakistan and northwest Indiaaround 3300 BCE.
So we're talking right aroundwhen Dynasty Zero was forming up
in Egypt.
So we're talking right aroundwhen Dynasty Zero was forming up
in Egypt.
The people in the region weresometimes referred to as the
(01:49):
Harappans, so on occasion I mayrefer to them as the Harappans,
just an FYI.
Also, I want to make it clearmy pronunciation might be out of
touch, so just bear with me ifI mispronounce a few of the
names and places in this series.
I apologize beforehand.
I know it's actually get worse,probably in India, so I just
(02:09):
want to kind of throw that outthere.
Anyway.
Now, out of all the podcasts Ido, this one might be one of the
more challenging ones, becausethere really isn't a whole lot
of information pertaining to theIndus Valley region.
We do know that thesecivilizations lasted for a very
long time, upwards of about2,000 years, as it started
(02:31):
around 32 or 3300 BCE and itlasted approximately to around
1300 BCE.
And ultimately, the biggestreason why I wanted to put this
episode together was because Iwould come across references to
these civilizations, especiallywhen I'd read about Mesopotamia
(02:52):
or ancient India.
So I figured, why not try topiece the puzzle together with,
say, mesopotamia, with theirinteractions with the Indus
civilizations, theirinteractions with the Indus
civilizations?
However, I think it's importantwhen looking at the ancient
Indus Valley societies, alongwith a lot of other ancient
societies, that we try not toview them from a modern American
(03:16):
or European lens, for example,or you know, from some other
place.
That's a modern place, it couldbe somewhere in Africa or
whatever, but you want to reallyunderstand that these are
ancient civilizations, and thisright here can be a challenging
exercise, because oftentimes weare so conditioned to view
things a certain way that it canbe difficult to take a step
(03:39):
back and realize ancient peoplein different parts of the world
had much different values thanwe do today.
A lot of this can be driven bythe fact that in today's society
we have access to abundance offood and water and medicines and
shelter, along with livingrelatively peaceful as well.
(03:59):
A lot of ancient society didnot have many of those
conditions on a frequent basis,but even more so, much of
history from this region of theworld has been filtered down
through colonialism.
So, like a lot of non-Europeansocieties, it may be hard to
separate fact from fiction or,at the very least, negative
(04:23):
propaganda, or at the very leastnegative propaganda.
Now, unfortunately, much of thehistory has been lost or yet to
be deciphered.
In fact, I've read thathistorians have indicated that
so little is known that it'sbest to really not assume
anything about these cities.
And I think this is reallynecessary because, as an
(04:45):
American and I think most peoplein the Americas and even
Europeans well, they generallyhave a better understanding of
ancient European history, moreso than, say, asian or Near
Eastern histories.
And then you would factor incertain biases and certain
(05:05):
things can get lost ormisunderstood.
It appears that the firstsettlement in the Indus Valley
was in a place known as Mehigar.
This settlement may haveoriginally formed around 7,000
BCE 7,000 BCE Now.
(05:28):
I would imagine that thissettlement would have looked a
lot like other settlements inother parts of the world during
this time period, in that oncethe population settled into a
more permanent basis, theinhabitants would have most
likely been farmers and alsoraised certain herd of cattle or
goats and sheep, for example.
Certain herd of cattle or goatsand sheep, for example.
(05:48):
In addition, it did not appearthat they had an early form of
metallurgy as metal tools fromthe settlements that were later
discovered did not indicate assuch.
But that would make sensebecause this is so early in time
periods that we haven't evencrossed the boundary of getting
into the Copper Age, so thatwould make a lot more sense.
And don't forget, this is 7,000BCE, so we'll have a good 4,000
(06:10):
more years before we get intowhat we know of the ancient
valley civilizations.
So this would be another caseof the ancients for the ancients
, because the Ennis Valley thatI'm going to discuss didn't get
started to about 3300 BCE.
Now, bear in mind, this wouldhave been completely separate
(06:32):
civilization from thecivilizations of the Indus
Valley, and that would make alot of sense because there's a
4,000 year separation.
So there's obviously going tobe a lot different and also, too
, there's going to be differentmigration patterns.
So the people that are in thisregion 4,000 years later will be
different kinds of people thatwould have migrated in from
other parts of the region or theworld itself homes out of mud
(07:07):
bricks that would have looked alot like the ones that we'd have
found in Sumer.
It's hard to know for sure, butit's possible that there was
some kind of information thatwas passed between the two
societies, or it's possible thattheir home building skills were
developed independently of eachother and there was no
information passed, just kind ofone of those weird historical
coincidences.
That's a certain possibility ofthat happening.
(07:30):
By the time we get to 5500 BCE,it appears that the civilization
was getting better at farming,but they still would have
planted mostly cereal crops, ofwhich the grains would have been
stored in mud brick granaries.
The homes also appear to becomea bit more standard, in that
(07:50):
you wouldn't see a greatvariation between certain homes
in the villages.
But it was in this time periodthat we really start to see much
bigger operations in breadmaking and advanced pottery, but
it doesn't seem that they werean outlier from other ancient
civilizations that were alsothriving around this time as
well.
(08:11):
In other words, archaeologistsdon't notice a big difference
between the finished goods inthis society versus other
societies in other parts of theworld, so I'm thinking a place
like Sumer, for example.
But nonetheless it was just aslow, steady advancement in
(08:32):
technologies, and let us notforget that we are not even in
the Bronze Age yet.
The earliest periods of theIndus Valley would have been in
the time frame fromapproximately 3300 BCE to about
2500 BCE.
This 800 year period would havebeen a bit more transitory in
(08:56):
nature, but there would havebeen more permanent housing and
farming as well.
It's really not until we get tothe middle Indus period, which
would have been from, say, 2500to 1900 BCE, that we really
start to see the Indus Valleyform up and more or less become
(09:16):
the region that archaeologistsand historians tend to refer to.
So by this time the people ofthe in this valley are growing
crops year-round and theinhabitants would have become
more or less permanently settledand therefore less migratory.
But I think what reallyseparates this time was the fact
(09:38):
that the technologies wereadvancing as climate change was
encroaching, but the people ofthe region were basically able
to deal with it, and this wasdone by building impressive
irrigation systems.
In addition, as farming gotbetter and they were able to
establish a steady source ofwater, the population grew and
(10:02):
they were able to diversifytheir livelihoods by raising not
just cows, but they alsoexpanded into chickens, and they
were also able to raise donkeysas beasts of burden for trade,
of which they were able to tradetheir surplus with other Indus
Valley cities and even peopleoutside of the valley Valley
(10:26):
cities and even people outsideof the valley, and this is when
we really start to first hearabout the Indus Valley from
other societies in places likeChina and Mesopotamia.
Now, the Chinese would refer tothe people of the Indus Valley
as the Shendu or the Sindh orthe Sindh, and by around 2500
(10:52):
BCE there were over 1,000 citiesand smaller settlements within
the Indus Valley.
So the Indus Valley was reallya collective of different towns
and villages that all hadsimilar cultural norms.
Of the cultural norms, thesubject of writing is a bit
tricky because the Harappans, or, if you want to just say, the
people of the Indus Valley,however you want to refer to
(11:13):
them.
Well, they used a system ofwriting that was similar to that
of the cuneiform writing usedby the Sumerians and as such,
it's quite possible that a lotof the systems and ideas were
transferred between the twocultures through trade.
However, historians think thatthe Indus system of writing was,
(11:35):
in fact, independentlydeveloped rather than based on
Sumerian cuneiform.
This script is called the Indusor the Harappan script, but the
biggest problem is no onereally knows how to translate
any of it.
There hasn't been a RosettaStone to help archaeologists
(11:57):
decipher the script, so itcannot be read today, unlike,
say, the Sumerian cuneiform, itcannot be read today, unlike,
say, the Samaritan cuneiform,and that in itself is the
biggest reason why discussingthe people of the ancient Indus
civilizations tends to be a bitmore tricky than other places,
because in other societies thathave had writing deciphered, we
(12:20):
can really know a lot about theplace.
But unfortunately for us, a lotof the information that we're
going to get is probably goingto come from other cultures and
other places, and really whathappens is archaeologists kind
of have to put some sort ofeducated guesswork into what
certain things meant when theyfind them.
So in a way, kind of havingthis episode after I just
(12:46):
published the Nubian episodeskind of really goes together in
a sense that, for example, withthe Nubians, they didn't have
any writing until about 300 BCE.
So a lot of the stuff that weget about the Nubians would have
come from the Egyptians, andthat in itself can be a problem,
(13:06):
especially if a culture is atwar or maybe they're just
typical trade rivals.
So you get a lot of negativepropaganda surrounding the
culture that either doesn't haveits own written language or has
a written language that hasn'tbeen deciphered.
So therefore one would thinkwell, we don't have any
(13:30):
deciphered letters or tablets,so maybe we can look and see
what other cultures are sayingabout them and try to get an
understanding of what the IndusValley culture was really like,
of what the Indus Valley culturewas really like.
Unfortunately, the Mesopotamiansand even the Chinese really
(13:51):
didn't write a lot about theIndus culture, so we can't
really go on their accountsbecause there just isn't enough
of it.
What we do get is limitedaccounts from certain trading
missions into Mesopotamia orinto China, and that's really
about it.
So everything that we know hascome from archaeological digs,
(14:11):
and through these digs we'reable to get an understanding of
the housing and the buildingsthat were constructed, along
with other items that wererecovered.
That would have to beinterpreted.
And the problem withinterpretation is sometimes it's
interpreted incorrectly.
And this goes back to what Isaid at the beginning, where I
(14:33):
was saying hey, you know, asAmericans or Europeans, when
we're looking at things andwe're trying to interpret it, we
tend to interpret it throughthe eyes of colonialism, and
that can lead to a lot ofproblems because there's going
to be a lot of misinterpretationand a lot of misunderstanding.
Since we don't have anydeciphered writings, historians
(14:54):
really aren't sure what kind ofpolitical system the people in
this valley would haveparticipated in.
They are pretty sure that therewas some kind of central
planning or government in place,because the cities and towns
were laid out in a gridformation, which would mean that
there would have to be someonethat had some kind of
(15:14):
responsibility for ensuring thatthe city was laid out in the
grid fashion, because without acentral planning authority, you
would expect the cities to bekind of jumbled up in the
streets and alleys, going in allsorts of different directions.
Ultimately, there is also alack of evidence of any kind of
(15:34):
king or signal ruler, so no onereally knows what kind of
government the Indus Valleycivilizations had, or even if
they had a government at all.
Since no one can interpret thescript, no one really knows for
certain what kind of politicalsystem was put in place.
An idea has been put forwardthat maybe their political
system was similar to that ofthe Italian city-states in the
(15:57):
late medieval period, whereasthe merchants or the landowners
had a much bigger say on how thecity was run.
Now, with regards to politics,something interesting has been
noticed.
In fact, I'd say that it is oneof the most remarkable things
(16:18):
that has ever been discoveredfrom any ancient society, or
even a modern society for thatmatter.
What I'm getting to is the factthat there is no evidence of
any kind of wars that haveoccurred in this region.
Therefore, historians reallyaren't sure if they didn't go to
war because they were sopeaceful, or maybe they were so
(16:42):
isolated that others did not goto war with them, so maybe they
didn't have a natural enemy dueto the fact that they were kind
of hemmed in by the mountains.
But either way, even if youwere isolated or living in a
region that's hard to get to,it's still remarkable that there
is virtually no evidence of anykind of war whatsoever in this
(17:05):
region.
And, to be honest with you, ifsomeone would have asked me not
too long ago if there's everbeen a society that potentially
has never had any wars, I wouldhave said that is probably not
likely.
It's probably almost impossiblefor anything like that to ever
(17:25):
happen with any place in theworld.
But the Indus Valley may haveproved me wrong.
The biggest reason we know ofthe people in Indus Valley was
initially due to the fact thatthey were mentioned in ancient
Chinese writings, as well as inMesopotamian writings, whenever
(17:46):
they conducted trade with thesepeople.
In addition, archaeologicaldigs have also shown that there
was an ancient civilization inthe region.
This particular region wouldhave been around the Indus
Valley and its tributaries, soultimately, access to rivers
would have made it easier forother civilizations to trade
(18:07):
with the people of the IndusValley.
But it wasn't just the riverthat allowed the population to
move goods out of the region.
In addition, there were otherlarge bodies of water, such as
the Arabian Sea, the PersianGulf and the Red Sea, that would
have allowed the people of theIndus to trade with other Indian
peoples, along with movinggoods into places like Dilman.
(18:29):
That ultimately would havemoved goods into Sumer and the
rest of Mesopotamia, along witheven moving goods into Egypt and
Nubia.
This trade through the watersystems was most likely enabled
by rafts that had sails withmasts on them.
Unfortunately, these raftswould have been made of wood and
(18:51):
they would decay and decomposeand therefore we wouldn't have
any examples that would havesurvived.
So unfortunately, we justreally don't have any direct
evidence.
Unfortunately, we just reallydon't have any direct evidence
Now.
A town called Lothal, which wasfamous for its docks, would have
been an early trading port toship goods in and out of the
(19:13):
region.
It appears that these traderswould have worked on these docks
and would have worked hand inhand with local farmers and
craftsmen and, ultimately, withthe merchants.
They would have shipped thegoods to India, to Egypt,
mesopotamia, anatolia and Dilmun, and, along with China,
(19:33):
directly from Lothal.
I bring up these sitesspecifically because it appears
that these were the biggesttrading partners outside of
local trade within the IndusValley.
The reason why we know all thisis because there have been so
many fragmented remainsthroughout these regions, which
(19:54):
suggests that there wereextensive roadways and sea
routes that extended as far asAnatolia.
In an absolutely fabulous bookby William J Bernstein called A
Splendid Exchange, he referredto this as version 1.0 of the
(20:14):
World Trade Organization, but healso noted that the trade was
probably indirect, meaning thatthere were a lot of middlemen
involved to take the handoff ofgoods to each destination.
So therefore, it's quitepossible that the people of the
Indus Valley never met thepeople of Anatolia face to face.
(20:36):
In other words, there's just,you know, from point A to B, to
C to D, and eventually gets topoint X and that point B in
Anatolia, and the goods couldhave exchanged hands numerous
times before he got there, andthese goods that were trading
would have often been some sortof crops or foodstuffs, along
(20:57):
with certain goods produced bycraftsmen, such as beads and
pottery, and cloth along withother locally mined minerals or
jewels, and cloth along withother locally mined minerals or
jewels.
We know this becausearchaeologists have found
products in places likeMesopotamia and China that were
developed in the Indus Valley.
Now the one thing we do notknow for certain is what kind of
(21:22):
currency was used or,specifically, how they would
have traded with others was used, or specifically how they would
have traded with others.
When I was in my undergraduatestudies and even graduate
studies for that matter I wouldoften read about these great
barter operations that thesepeople would have utilized in
order to facilitate trade.
The problem is there reallyisn't any direct evidence of
(21:46):
barter.
The problem is there reallyisn't any direct evidence of
barter.
So it's quite possible that mytextbooks would have been
written extensively on barter,because that system would have
been the most logical processfor economic historians.
Even the great Adam Smith wroteabout barter.
But, like I said before, thereisn't any evidence about this
(22:11):
system that would have takenplace anywhere on a large scale
and on a micro level, sure,barter would happen even to this
day, but on a macro level, itprobably didn't happen this way
as the way I was always taught.
Instead, what was most likely,the way people in the industry
traded was through a system ofcredits, whereas people track
(22:34):
what kind of goods were tradedwith one another and then there
would be some kind of settlingup at some specific time period.
So, in other words, I tradewith various people, those
various people trade with others.
We all have knowledge of eachother's deals and at the end we
minimize the transfer ofwhatever good we want to use as
(22:56):
a medium exchange to the fewestamounts and to the fewest amount
of people.
Or, if it's a simple one-to-onetrading system, we settle up at
a specific time period and wejust net the amounts of the
medium exchange.
What they would have used asthe medium, we don't really know
(23:16):
.
Maybe it was some kind of grain, or maybe it was silver, or
maybe it was gold or some otherkind of commodity.
But this really is becoming, Ithink, the more likely scenario
of how macro level trading wouldhave taken place.
So it's quite possible that theidea of using a system of
(23:39):
credits and settling up well,maybe that's how the people of
the ancients in the valley wouldhave traded internally or even
externally.
But the fact remains is we justdon't know, and we ultimately
have to speculate on, how thesetransactions would have occurred
.
And a lot of the speculationwould come from the fact that
(24:00):
there was no evidence that thepeople of the Indus Valley had
their own coinage or even aconcept of money.
Now, the coinage issueshouldn't be much of a surprise,
because we really don't see anyevidence of coinage until about
630 BCE in Anatolia, in thekingdom of Lydia.
But prior to the use of coinage, other civilizations would have
(24:25):
measured out silver and evengold to a lesser extent as a
means of payment or would haveused other grains as a form of
currency.
Like I said, it's possible thatthe people of the Indus used a
commodity as a form of currency,but that's just not known at
(24:46):
this point.
A form of currency, but that'sjust not known at this point.
Like all other ancientcivilizations, the most popular
trade would have typically beenthat of foodstuffs and other
animal products, and it wasn'tjust raw materials that were
traded.
It also would have beenprocessed or even finished goods
that were made directly fromthe animals or the crops that
(25:09):
they raised.
The most common processedagricultural goods would have
been that of certain cottonclothes, along with dried spices
.
I'd say that the most populartrade items outside of the
agricultural goods would havebeen that of pottery and jewelry
.
Not unlike other ancientcivilizations at this time, the
(25:36):
pottery would have been made ofmud or clay, but they also would
have traded other certain goods, such as kitchen goods, such as
plates and cups and bowls.
These goods could have madetheir way into other
civilizations away from theIndus Valley, but for the most
part they would have been tradedlocally and circling back to
(25:56):
their biggest trade partnersoutside of the local Indus
Valley.
Well, these trade partnerswould have been, as I mentioned,
the people of Mesopotamia andChina and other Indian
civilizations.
The people of Mesopotamia wouldhave shipped certain minerals
and gems to the Indus Valley,whereas the Chinese would have
(26:17):
sent a diverse array of goods,in part to the fact that they
were so far away.
They would have sent certainitems such as hardwood and jade.
And if you aren't familiar withjade, jade is a mineral used in
jewelry.
It's typically green, althoughit may be yellow or white.
So it's quite possible thatjade came into the Indus Valley
(26:43):
and they would have used it tocreate jewelry and then they
would have shipped it off intoother faraway places like
Mesopotamia or even south intothe Indian subcontinent.
So it sounds like a very moderninternational trade system
where you get minerals orcertain items out of the earth,
you sent it to another placewhere they processed it and then
(27:07):
they shipped it off into otherparts of the world.
Sounds like a very modernprocess to me, and this was done
, you know, 2500 BCE, so it'squite astounding to me.
Ultimately, historians knowthese civilizations traded with
each other because items fromthe Indus Valley have been found
in sites located in Mesopotamiaand China, in Lower India and
(27:32):
as far away as Egypt and as wellas Anubia.
And eventually, the Indus Valleywill make trade more efficient
when they develop certainstandardized weights and
measures.
This aspect is probably one ofthe more underrated aspects of
trade, and I don't think a lotof people typically think of
(27:54):
this when they envision whataspects needed to be developed
in order to facilitate trade.
So, without having a standardway to take measurements, trade
would be very inefficient.
However, once you developstandards that everybody's going
to use on local trade, wellthen that would make a lot
(28:16):
easier when you knowspecifically the amounts of the
goods that you are movingbetween each other.
So, in other words, withoutstandardized weights and
measures.
So, in other words, withoutstandardized weights and
measures you would pretty muchhave to either eyeball or
squabble about the amounts onnearly everything that you're
moving from one source to theother.
But now, with standardization,you can get exact amounts.
(28:43):
When I was discussing Sumer andAkkad, it was when Sargon, who
conquered much of Mesopotamia.
Well, he had institutedstandardized ways and measures
which ultimately helped growtrade throughout Mesopotamia.
The same thing could havehappened in the Indus Valley
civilizations.
We don't know if there was asingle ruler most likely not,
(29:06):
but it is more likely that itwas an organization or possibly
a committee of variouscity-states that would have
instituted standardized weightsand measures between the towns,
which ultimately would havehelped trade tremendously, and
this would have ultimately givenpeople a good idea of each of
(29:27):
the goods that they're trading,its true value.
Now, the one thing that reallyhelped out the people of the
Innis Valley was they were verygood with advanced mathematics.
Of course, this would have mostlikely helped with trade, but
also would have been used in themeasurements for architecture
(29:48):
and metallurgy and evendesigning the irrigation systems
, but for a long distance trade.
Having the ability to measuredistances enabled the people in
this valley to get a goodunderstanding of how far they
needed to go when they weretrading long distances, because
they had the ability to measuredistances on land and sea.
(30:12):
Now I just brought up metallurgya few seconds ago.
It appears that they were greatat making bronze, but they were
also able to make objects outof copper and tin by itself.
It's most likely that none ofthe objects were made purely out
of tin, because it would havebeen very valuable objects
(30:32):
because tin was very rare andhighly coveted throughout the
ancient world during the BronzeAge.
In my opinion, kind of lookingback at it, tin kind of reminds
me me of the modern world's useof oil, in that modern societies
need oil for industry anddefense, just like in ancient
(30:56):
societies.
They would have required theirability to get tin as a national
security issue, along withusing it in industry for making
tools and, obviously, weapons.
And another valuable commoditythat is highly coveted today as
well as it was back in ancientsocieties was that of gold.
(31:18):
Now it is not really known forsure if the people of the Indus
Valley civilizations would havetraded gold as a medium of
exchange, or if it was used incertain religious festivals or
even as burial traditions, likethere was of the Egyptians.
But it appears that they didhave the ability to determine if
(31:42):
gold was real or not, so mostlikely they would have had some
sort of desire for gold.
What it was used for, we'rereally not 100% sure.
The Innis Valley would haveexperienced two monsoon seasons
per year, so therefore theywould have had an abundance of
(32:02):
water in the region, but likethe Egyptians, they would have
had to be able to control thewater, especially when it was
too much water.
Since they had greatengineering skills, they were
able to control the flow ofwater coming into and out of the
region, just like the Egyptianswere able to control the flow
of water coming into and out ofthe region, just like the
Egyptians were able to controlthe Nile.
Some of the staple food cropsthat were traded, which was
(32:24):
mostly internally, were cerealslike barley and wheat, along
with other certain beans andsesame.
They also learned how toproduce different kinds of
millets, in which they may havebeen one of the early pioneers
in selective breeding inagriculture, in which they may
have been one of the earlypioneers in selective breeding
in agriculture.
Eventually, their farmingbasically expanded into growing
(32:53):
fruits and vegetables, includingmelons and dates, and even
grapes.
Just like the people of Sumer,the Indus Valley utilized the
furrow irrigation system, whichwas a large, complex and unified
structure requiring command inplace by places like the temple
or the palace in order tocoordinate the labor on a grand
scale, creating small channelsalong the length of a field in
(33:23):
the direction of its slope, sowater would be applied to the
top of each furrow and it wouldflow naturally down the fields
under the influence of gravity.
The rows were laid out in araised pile and then lowered
into a trench pattern.
This made it a lot easier toseparate the plants that need to
have deeper and shallower rootsand to provide certain kinds of
spacing.
(33:43):
In addition, this helped toreduce flooding and soil erosion
whenever there was excess rainduring the monsoon season.
In addition, this pattern alsokind of helped create a
protection barrier againsterosion caused by the wind.
In addition, the local farmerswould have also used beasts of
(34:06):
burden to help make farming moreefficient, and since there was
trade with the peoples of Sumer,the people in this valley would
have learned from the people ofSumer and how to create and use
the plow.
Now, unfortunately, the plowwould have been made of wood and
therefore all the ancient plowswould have decayed a long time
(34:26):
ago and therefore we wouldn'thave any leftover plows that we
can study to this day.
So in the end, the Induseconomies, like all other
ancient civilizations, prettymuch revolved around farming and
agriculture, and eventuallythey were able to grow cash
(34:48):
crops such as cotton.
Besides growing cash crops, thelocal people domesticated cows
and goats and sheep, of whichthis would have provided the
local population with themuch-needed proteins, including
milk and meat, but also thesedomesticated animals would have
also provided wool and leathers.
In addition, the people wouldhave supplemented their meat
(35:09):
intake through hunting andfishing.
So the fact remains that thepeople of the Innis Valley were
able to grow their crops, haveaccess to meats and cheeses from
their domestic animals andtherefore the various cities of
the Indus Valley would have sawpopulation booms, of which I'll
go into more detail in the nextand last episode of the Indus
(35:31):
Valley.
I realize this was a shorterepisode, but I thought it'd be a
nice primer for when I get intothe various cities that made up
the Indus Valley, if you likewhat you hear and want to donate
to the show.
You can visit us at patreoncomslash history of money banking
(35:52):
trade or you can visit ourwebsite at moneybankingtradecom.
Also, you can help out the showa ton by leaving a five-star
review, along with telling afriend or two Thank you very
much.
Talk to you soon.
Welcome podcast listener.
I am Mike D and this is theHistory of Money, banking and
Trade podcast.
My goal is to expand yourknowledge of the history and
evolution of trade, along withmoney, banking and credit, from
ancient civilizations all theway to the present.
I truly hope you find theseepisodes to be informative and
entertaining.
(00:24):
Now, I'm not a historian but,like Dan Collin likes to say,
I'm a fan of history.
For this episode, I wanted tocontinue looking at the ancients
of the ancients.
What I mean by this is ourancient civilizations of the
Greeks and the Assyrians wouldhave looked at Dynasty Zero of
(00:45):
the Egyptian Empire as anancient civilization as well,
but as Dynasty Zero was formingup, we also see another ancient
civilization to the east thatwas also flourishing.
I also wanted to talk aboutthis civilization because I
brought them up several timesand, more importantly, I just
don't think enough people talkabout the Indus Valley as we go
(01:08):
through this series.
I think you'll kind ofunderstand why.
Unfortunately, there isn't asmuch information as we'd like
surrounding these various cities, but either way, I thought it'd
be a nice region of the worldto explore, as it ultimately was
one of the earliestcivilizations to form up upon
the Indian subcontinent.
(01:29):
The Indus Valley civilizationwas formed in modern day
Pakistan and northwest Indiaaround 3300 BCE.
So we're talking right aroundwhen Dynasty Zero was forming up
in Egypt.
So we're talking right aroundwhen Dynasty Zero was forming up
in Egypt.
The people in the region weresometimes referred to as the
(01:49):
Harappans, so on occasion I mayrefer to them as the Harappans,
just an FYI.
Also, I want to make it clearmy pronunciation might be out of
touch, so just bear with me ifI mispronounce a few of the
names and places in this series.
I apologize beforehand.
I know it's actually get worse,probably in India, so I just
(02:09):
want to kind of throw that outthere.
Anyway.
Now, out of all the podcasts Ido, this one might be one of the
more challenging ones, becausethere really isn't a whole lot
of information pertaining to theIndus Valley region.
We do know that thesecivilizations lasted for a very
long time, upwards of about2,000 years, as it started
(02:31):
around 32 or 3300 BCE and itlasted approximately to around
1300 BCE.
And ultimately, the biggestreason why I wanted to put this
episode together was because Iwould come across references to
these civilizations, especiallywhen I'd read about Mesopotamia
(02:52):
or ancient India.
So I figured, why not try topiece the puzzle together with,
say, mesopotamia, with theirinteractions with the Indus
civilizations, theirinteractions with the Indus
civilizations?
However, I think it's importantwhen looking at the ancient
Indus Valley societies, alongwith a lot of other ancient
societies, that we try not toview them from a modern American
(03:16):
or European lens, for example,or you know, from some other
place.
That's a modern place, it couldbe somewhere in Africa or
whatever, but you want to reallyunderstand that these are
ancient civilizations, and thisright here can be a challenging
exercise, because oftentimes weare so conditioned to view
things a certain way that it canbe difficult to take a step
(03:39):
back and realize ancient peoplein different parts of the world
had much different values thanwe do today.
A lot of this can be driven bythe fact that in today's society
we have access to abundance offood and water and medicines and
shelter, along with livingrelatively peaceful as well.
(03:59):
A lot of ancient society didnot have many of those
conditions on a frequent basis,but even more so, much of
history from this region of theworld has been filtered down
through colonialism.
So, like a lot of non-Europeansocieties, it may be hard to
separate fact from fiction or,at the very least, negative
(04:23):
propaganda, or at the very leastnegative propaganda.
Now, unfortunately, much of thehistory has been lost or yet to
be deciphered.
In fact, I've read thathistorians have indicated that
so little is known that it'sbest to really not assume
anything about these cities.
And I think this is reallynecessary because, as an
(04:45):
American and I think most peoplein the Americas and even
Europeans well, they generallyhave a better understanding of
ancient European history, moreso than, say, asian or Near
Eastern histories.
And then you would factor incertain biases and certain
(05:05):
things can get lost ormisunderstood.
It appears that the firstsettlement in the Indus Valley
was in a place known as Mehigar.
This settlement may haveoriginally formed around 7,000
BCE 7,000 BCE Now.
(05:28):
I would imagine that thissettlement would have looked a
lot like other settlements inother parts of the world during
this time period, in that oncethe population settled into a
more permanent basis, theinhabitants would have most
likely been farmers and alsoraised certain herd of cattle or
goats and sheep, for example.
Certain herd of cattle or goatsand sheep, for example.
(05:48):
In addition, it did not appearthat they had an early form of
metallurgy as metal tools fromthe settlements that were later
discovered did not indicate assuch.
But that would make sensebecause this is so early in time
periods that we haven't evencrossed the boundary of getting
into the Copper Age, so thatwould make a lot more sense.
And don't forget, this is 7,000BCE, so we'll have a good 4,000
(06:10):
more years before we get intowhat we know of the ancient
valley civilizations.
So this would be another caseof the ancients for the ancients
, because the Ennis Valley thatI'm going to discuss didn't get
started to about 3300 BCE.
Now, bear in mind, this wouldhave been completely separate
(06:32):
civilization from thecivilizations of the Indus
Valley, and that would make alot of sense because there's a
4,000 year separation.
So there's obviously going tobe a lot different and also, too
, there's going to be differentmigration patterns.
So the people that are in thisregion 4,000 years later will be
different kinds of people thatwould have migrated in from
other parts of the region or theworld itself homes out of mud
(07:07):
bricks that would have looked alot like the ones that we'd have
found in Sumer.
It's hard to know for sure, butit's possible that there was
some kind of information thatwas passed between the two
societies, or it's possible thattheir home building skills were
developed independently of eachother and there was no
information passed, just kind ofone of those weird historical
coincidences.
That's a certain possibility ofthat happening.
(07:30):
By the time we get to 5500 BCE,it appears that the civilization
was getting better at farming,but they still would have
planted mostly cereal crops, ofwhich the grains would have been
stored in mud brick granaries.
The homes also appear to becomea bit more standard, in that
(07:50):
you wouldn't see a greatvariation between certain homes
in the villages.
But it was in this time periodthat we really start to see much
bigger operations in breadmaking and advanced pottery, but
it doesn't seem that they werean outlier from other ancient
civilizations that were alsothriving around this time as
well.
(08:11):
In other words, archaeologistsdon't notice a big difference
between the finished goods inthis society versus other
societies in other parts of theworld, so I'm thinking a place
like Sumer, for example.
But nonetheless it was just aslow, steady advancement in
(08:32):
technologies, and let us notforget that we are not even in
the Bronze Age yet.
The earliest periods of theIndus Valley would have been in
the time frame fromapproximately 3300 BCE to about
2500 BCE.
This 800 year period would havebeen a bit more transitory in
(08:56):
nature, but there would havebeen more permanent housing and
farming as well.
It's really not until we get tothe middle Indus period, which
would have been from, say, 2500to 1900 BCE, that we really
start to see the Indus Valleyform up and more or less become
(09:16):
the region that archaeologistsand historians tend to refer to.
So by this time the people ofthe in this valley are growing
crops year-round and theinhabitants would have become
more or less permanently settledand therefore less migratory.
But I think what reallyseparates this time was the fact
(09:38):
that the technologies wereadvancing as climate change was
encroaching, but the people ofthe region were basically able
to deal with it, and this wasdone by building impressive
irrigation systems.
In addition, as farming gotbetter and they were able to
establish a steady source ofwater, the population grew and
(10:02):
they were able to diversifytheir livelihoods by raising not
just cows, but they alsoexpanded into chickens, and they
were also able to raise donkeysas beasts of burden for trade,
of which they were able to tradetheir surplus with other Indus
Valley cities and even peopleoutside of the valley Valley
(10:26):
cities and even people outsideof the valley, and this is when
we really start to first hearabout the Indus Valley from
other societies in places likeChina and Mesopotamia.
Now, the Chinese would refer tothe people of the Indus Valley
as the Shendu or the Sindh orthe Sindh, and by around 2500
(10:52):
BCE there were over 1,000 citiesand smaller settlements within
the Indus Valley.
So the Indus Valley was reallya collective of different towns
and villages that all hadsimilar cultural norms.
Of the cultural norms, thesubject of writing is a bit
tricky because the Harappans, or, if you want to just say, the
people of the Indus Valley,however you want to refer to
(11:13):
them.
Well, they used a system ofwriting that was similar to that
of the cuneiform writing usedby the Sumerians and as such,
it's quite possible that a lotof the systems and ideas were
transferred between the twocultures through trade.
However, historians think thatthe Indus system of writing was,
(11:35):
in fact, independentlydeveloped rather than based on
Sumerian cuneiform.
This script is called the Indusor the Harappan script, but the
biggest problem is no onereally knows how to translate
any of it.
There hasn't been a RosettaStone to help archaeologists
(11:57):
decipher the script, so itcannot be read today, unlike,
say, the Sumerian cuneiform, itcannot be read today, unlike,
say, the Samaritan cuneiform,and that in itself is the
biggest reason why discussingthe people of the ancient Indus
civilizations tends to be a bitmore tricky than other places,
because in other societies thathave had writing deciphered, we
(12:20):
can really know a lot about theplace.
But unfortunately for us, a lotof the information that we're
going to get is probably goingto come from other cultures and
other places, and really whathappens is archaeologists kind
of have to put some sort ofeducated guesswork into what
certain things meant when theyfind them.
So in a way, kind of havingthis episode after I just
(12:46):
published the Nubian episodeskind of really goes together in
a sense that, for example, withthe Nubians, they didn't have
any writing until about 300 BCE.
So a lot of the stuff that weget about the Nubians would have
come from the Egyptians, andthat in itself can be a problem,
(13:06):
especially if a culture is atwar or maybe they're just
typical trade rivals.
So you get a lot of negativepropaganda surrounding the
culture that either doesn't haveits own written language or has
a written language that hasn'tbeen deciphered.
So therefore one would thinkwell, we don't have any
(13:30):
deciphered letters or tablets,so maybe we can look and see
what other cultures are sayingabout them and try to get an
understanding of what the IndusValley culture was really like,
of what the Indus Valley culturewas really like.
Unfortunately, the Mesopotamiansand even the Chinese really
(13:51):
didn't write a lot about theIndus culture, so we can't
really go on their accountsbecause there just isn't enough
of it.
What we do get is limitedaccounts from certain trading
missions into Mesopotamia orinto China, and that's really
about it.
So everything that we know hascome from archaeological digs,
(14:11):
and through these digs we'reable to get an understanding of
the housing and the buildingsthat were constructed, along
with other items that wererecovered.
That would have to beinterpreted.
And the problem withinterpretation is sometimes it's
interpreted incorrectly.
And this goes back to what Isaid at the beginning, where I
(14:33):
was saying hey, you know, asAmericans or Europeans, when
we're looking at things andwe're trying to interpret it, we
tend to interpret it throughthe eyes of colonialism, and
that can lead to a lot ofproblems because there's going
to be a lot of misinterpretationand a lot of misunderstanding.
Since we don't have anydeciphered writings, historians
(14:54):
really aren't sure what kind ofpolitical system the people in
this valley would haveparticipated in.
They are pretty sure that therewas some kind of central
planning or government in place,because the cities and towns
were laid out in a gridformation, which would mean that
there would have to be someonethat had some kind of
(15:14):
responsibility for ensuring thatthe city was laid out in the
grid fashion, because without acentral planning authority, you
would expect the cities to bekind of jumbled up in the
streets and alleys, going in allsorts of different directions.
Ultimately, there is also alack of evidence of any kind of
(15:34):
king or signal ruler, so no onereally knows what kind of
government the Indus Valleycivilizations had, or even if
they had a government at all.
Since no one can interpret thescript, no one really knows for
certain what kind of politicalsystem was put in place.
An idea has been put forwardthat maybe their political
system was similar to that ofthe Italian city-states in the
(15:57):
late medieval period, whereasthe merchants or the landowners
had a much bigger say on how thecity was run.
Now, with regards to politics,something interesting has been
noticed.
In fact, I'd say that it is oneof the most remarkable things
(16:18):
that has ever been discoveredfrom any ancient society, or
even a modern society for thatmatter.
What I'm getting to is the factthat there is no evidence of
any kind of wars that haveoccurred in this region.
Therefore, historians reallyaren't sure if they didn't go to
war because they were sopeaceful, or maybe they were so
(16:42):
isolated that others did not goto war with them, so maybe they
didn't have a natural enemy dueto the fact that they were kind
of hemmed in by the mountains.
But either way, even if youwere isolated or living in a
region that's hard to get to,it's still remarkable that there
is virtually no evidence of anykind of war whatsoever in this
(17:05):
region.
And, to be honest with you, ifsomeone would have asked me not
too long ago if there's everbeen a society that potentially
has never had any wars, I wouldhave said that is probably not
likely.
It's probably almost impossiblefor anything like that to ever
(17:25):
happen with any place in theworld.
But the Indus Valley may haveproved me wrong.
The biggest reason we know ofthe people in Indus Valley was
initially due to the fact thatthey were mentioned in ancient
Chinese writings, as well as inMesopotamian writings, whenever
(17:46):
they conducted trade with thesepeople.
In addition, archaeologicaldigs have also shown that there
was an ancient civilization inthe region.
This particular region wouldhave been around the Indus
Valley and its tributaries, soultimately, access to rivers
would have made it easier forother civilizations to trade
(18:07):
with the people of the IndusValley.
But it wasn't just the riverthat allowed the population to
move goods out of the region.
In addition, there were otherlarge bodies of water, such as
the Arabian Sea, the PersianGulf and the Red Sea, that would
have allowed the people of theIndus to trade with other Indian
peoples, along with movinggoods into places like Dilman.
(18:29):
That ultimately would havemoved goods into Sumer and the
rest of Mesopotamia, along witheven moving goods into Egypt and
Nubia.
This trade through the watersystems was most likely enabled
by rafts that had sails withmasts on them.
Unfortunately, these raftswould have been made of wood and
(18:51):
they would decay and decomposeand therefore we wouldn't have
any examples that would havesurvived.
So unfortunately, we justreally don't have any direct
evidence.
Unfortunately, we just reallydon't have any direct evidence
Now.
A town called Lothal, which wasfamous for its docks, would have
been an early trading port toship goods in and out of the
(19:13):
region.
It appears that these traderswould have worked on these docks
and would have worked hand inhand with local farmers and
craftsmen and, ultimately, withthe merchants.
They would have shipped thegoods to India, to Egypt,
mesopotamia, anatolia and Dilmun, and, along with China,
(19:33):
directly from Lothal.
I bring up these sitesspecifically because it appears
that these were the biggesttrading partners outside of
local trade within the IndusValley.
The reason why we know all thisis because there have been so
many fragmented remainsthroughout these regions, which
(19:54):
suggests that there wereextensive roadways and sea
routes that extended as far asAnatolia.
In an absolutely fabulous bookby William J Bernstein called A
Splendid Exchange, he referredto this as version 1.0 of the
(20:14):
World Trade Organization, but healso noted that the trade was
probably indirect, meaning thatthere were a lot of middlemen
involved to take the handoff ofgoods to each destination.
So therefore, it's quitepossible that the people of the
Indus Valley never met thepeople of Anatolia face to face.
(20:36):
In other words, there's just,you know, from point A to B, to
C to D, and eventually gets topoint X and that point B in
Anatolia, and the goods couldhave exchanged hands numerous
times before he got there, andthese goods that were trading
would have often been some sortof crops or foodstuffs, along
(20:57):
with certain goods produced bycraftsmen, such as beads and
pottery, and cloth along withother locally mined minerals or
jewels, and cloth along withother locally mined minerals or
jewels.
We know this becausearchaeologists have found
products in places likeMesopotamia and China that were
developed in the Indus Valley.
Now the one thing we do notknow for certain is what kind of
(21:22):
currency was used or,specifically, how they would
have traded with others was used, or specifically how they would
have traded with others.
When I was in my undergraduatestudies and even graduate
studies for that matter I wouldoften read about these great
barter operations that thesepeople would have utilized in
order to facilitate trade.
The problem is there reallyisn't any direct evidence of
(21:46):
barter.
The problem is there reallyisn't any direct evidence of
barter.
So it's quite possible that mytextbooks would have been
written extensively on barter,because that system would have
been the most logical processfor economic historians.
Even the great Adam Smith wroteabout barter.
But, like I said before, thereisn't any evidence about this
(22:11):
system that would have takenplace anywhere on a large scale
and on a micro level, sure,barter would happen even to this
day, but on a macro level, itprobably didn't happen this way
as the way I was always taught.
Instead, what was most likely,the way people in the industry
traded was through a system ofcredits, whereas people track
(22:34):
what kind of goods were tradedwith one another and then there
would be some kind of settlingup at some specific time period.
So, in other words, I tradewith various people, those
various people trade with others.
We all have knowledge of eachother's deals and at the end we
minimize the transfer ofwhatever good we want to use as
(22:56):
a medium exchange to the fewestamounts and to the fewest amount
of people.
Or, if it's a simple one-to-onetrading system, we settle up at
a specific time period and wejust net the amounts of the
medium exchange.
What they would have used asthe medium, we don't really know
(23:16):
.
Maybe it was some kind of grain, or maybe it was silver, or
maybe it was gold or some otherkind of commodity.
But this really is becoming, Ithink, the more likely scenario
of how macro level trading wouldhave taken place.
So it's quite possible that theidea of using a system of
(23:39):
credits and settling up well,maybe that's how the people of
the ancients in the valley wouldhave traded internally or even
externally.
But the fact remains is we justdon't know, and we ultimately
have to speculate on, how thesetransactions would have occurred
.
And a lot of the speculationwould come from the fact that
(24:00):
there was no evidence that thepeople of the Indus Valley had
their own coinage or even aconcept of money.
Now, the coinage issueshouldn't be much of a surprise,
because we really don't see anyevidence of coinage until about
630 BCE in Anatolia, in thekingdom of Lydia.
But prior to the use of coinage, other civilizations would have
(24:25):
measured out silver and evengold to a lesser extent as a
means of payment or would haveused other grains as a form of
currency.
Like I said, it's possible thatthe people of the Indus used a
commodity as a form of currency,but that's just not known at
(24:46):
this point.
A form of currency, but that'sjust not known at this point.
Like all other ancientcivilizations, the most popular
trade would have typically beenthat of foodstuffs and other
animal products, and it wasn'tjust raw materials that were
traded.
It also would have beenprocessed or even finished goods
that were made directly fromthe animals or the crops that
(25:09):
they raised.
The most common processedagricultural goods would have
been that of certain cottonclothes, along with dried spices
.
I'd say that the most populartrade items outside of the
agricultural goods would havebeen that of pottery and jewelry
.
Not unlike other ancientcivilizations at this time, the
(25:36):
pottery would have been made ofmud or clay, but they also would
have traded other certain goods, such as kitchen goods, such as
plates and cups and bowls.
These goods could have madetheir way into other
civilizations away from theIndus Valley, but for the most
part they would have been tradedlocally and circling back to
(25:56):
their biggest trade partnersoutside of the local Indus
Valley.
Well, these trade partnerswould have been, as I mentioned,
the people of Mesopotamia andChina and other Indian
civilizations.
The people of Mesopotamia wouldhave shipped certain minerals
and gems to the Indus Valley,whereas the Chinese would have
(26:17):
sent a diverse array of goods,in part to the fact that they
were so far away.
They would have sent certainitems such as hardwood and jade.
And if you aren't familiar withjade, jade is a mineral used in
jewelry.
It's typically green, althoughit may be yellow or white.
So it's quite possible thatjade came into the Indus Valley
(26:43):
and they would have used it tocreate jewelry and then they
would have shipped it off intoother faraway places like
Mesopotamia or even south intothe Indian subcontinent.
So it sounds like a very moderninternational trade system
where you get minerals orcertain items out of the earth,
you sent it to another placewhere they processed it and then
(27:07):
they shipped it off into otherparts of the world.
Sounds like a very modernprocess to me, and this was done
, you know, 2500 BCE, so it'squite astounding to me.
Ultimately, historians knowthese civilizations traded with
each other because items fromthe Indus Valley have been found
in sites located in Mesopotamiaand China, in Lower India and
(27:32):
as far away as Egypt and as wellas Anubia.
And eventually, the Indus Valleywill make trade more efficient
when they develop certainstandardized weights and
measures.
This aspect is probably one ofthe more underrated aspects of
trade, and I don't think a lotof people typically think of
(27:54):
this when they envision whataspects needed to be developed
in order to facilitate trade.
So, without having a standardway to take measurements, trade
would be very inefficient.
However, once you developstandards that everybody's going
to use on local trade, wellthen that would make a lot
(28:16):
easier when you knowspecifically the amounts of the
goods that you are movingbetween each other.
So, in other words, withoutstandardized weights and
measures.
So, in other words, withoutstandardized weights and
measures you would pretty muchhave to either eyeball or
squabble about the amounts onnearly everything that you're
moving from one source to theother.
But now, with standardization,you can get exact amounts.
(28:43):
When I was discussing Sumer andAkkad, it was when Sargon, who
conquered much of Mesopotamia.
Well, he had institutedstandardized ways and measures
which ultimately helped growtrade throughout Mesopotamia.
The same thing could havehappened in the Indus Valley
civilizations.
We don't know if there was asingle ruler most likely not,
(29:06):
but it is more likely that itwas an organization or possibly
a committee of variouscity-states that would have
instituted standardized weightsand measures between the towns,
which ultimately would havehelped trade tremendously, and
this would have ultimately givenpeople a good idea of each of
(29:27):
the goods that they're trading,its true value.
Now, the one thing that reallyhelped out the people of the
Innis Valley was they were verygood with advanced mathematics.
Of course, this would have mostlikely helped with trade, but
also would have been used in themeasurements for architecture
(29:48):
and metallurgy and evendesigning the irrigation systems
, but for a long distance trade.
Having the ability to measuredistances enabled the people in
this valley to get a goodunderstanding of how far they
needed to go when they weretrading long distances, because
they had the ability to measuredistances on land and sea.
(30:12):
Now I just brought up metallurgya few seconds ago.
It appears that they were greatat making bronze, but they were
also able to make objects outof copper and tin by itself.
It's most likely that none ofthe objects were made purely out
of tin, because it would havebeen very valuable objects
(30:32):
because tin was very rare andhighly coveted throughout the
ancient world during the BronzeAge.
In my opinion, kind of lookingback at it, tin kind of reminds
me me of the modern world's useof oil, in that modern societies
need oil for industry anddefense, just like in ancient
(30:56):
societies.
They would have required theirability to get tin as a national
security issue, along withusing it in industry for making
tools and, obviously, weapons.
And another valuable commoditythat is highly coveted today as
well as it was back in ancientsocieties was that of gold.
(31:18):
Now it is not really known forsure if the people of the Indus
Valley civilizations would havetraded gold as a medium of
exchange, or if it was used incertain religious festivals or
even as burial traditions, likethere was of the Egyptians.
But it appears that they didhave the ability to determine if
(31:42):
gold was real or not, so mostlikely they would have had some
sort of desire for gold.
What it was used for, we'rereally not 100% sure.
The Innis Valley would haveexperienced two monsoon seasons
per year, so therefore theywould have had an abundance of
(32:02):
water in the region, but likethe Egyptians, they would have
had to be able to control thewater, especially when it was
too much water.
Since they had greatengineering skills, they were
able to control the flow ofwater coming into and out of the
region, just like the Egyptianswere able to control the flow
of water coming into and out ofthe region, just like the
Egyptians were able to controlthe Nile.
Some of the staple food cropsthat were traded, which was
(32:24):
mostly internally, were cerealslike barley and wheat, along
with other certain beans andsesame.
They also learned how toproduce different kinds of
millets, in which they may havebeen one of the early pioneers
in selective breeding inagriculture, in which they may
have been one of the earlypioneers in selective breeding
in agriculture.
Eventually, their farmingbasically expanded into growing
(32:53):
fruits and vegetables, includingmelons and dates, and even
grapes.
Just like the people of Sumer,the Indus Valley utilized the
furrow irrigation system, whichwas a large, complex and unified
structure requiring command inplace by places like the temple
or the palace in order tocoordinate the labor on a grand
scale, creating small channelsalong the length of a field in
(33:23):
the direction of its slope, sowater would be applied to the
top of each furrow and it wouldflow naturally down the fields
under the influence of gravity.
The rows were laid out in araised pile and then lowered
into a trench pattern.
This made it a lot easier toseparate the plants that need to
have deeper and shallower rootsand to provide certain kinds of
spacing.
(33:43):
In addition, this helped toreduce flooding and soil erosion
whenever there was excess rainduring the monsoon season.
In addition, this pattern alsokind of helped create a
protection barrier againsterosion caused by the wind.
In addition, the local farmerswould have also used beasts of
(34:06):
burden to help make farming moreefficient, and since there was
trade with the peoples of Sumer,the people in this valley would
have learned from the people ofSumer and how to create and use
the plow.
Now, unfortunately, the plowwould have been made of wood and
therefore all the ancient plowswould have decayed a long time
(34:26):
ago and therefore we wouldn'thave any leftover plows that we
can study to this day.
So in the end, the Induseconomies, like all other
ancient civilizations, prettymuch revolved around farming and
agriculture, and eventuallythey were able to grow cash
(34:48):
crops such as cotton.
Besides growing cash crops, thelocal people domesticated cows
and goats and sheep, of whichthis would have provided the
local population with themuch-needed proteins, including
milk and meat, but also thesedomesticated animals would have
also provided wool and leathers.
In addition, the people wouldhave supplemented their meat
(35:09):
intake through hunting andfishing.
So the fact remains that thepeople of the Innis Valley were
able to grow their crops, haveaccess to meats and cheeses from
their domestic animals andtherefore the various cities of
the Indus Valley would have sawpopulation booms, of which I'll
go into more detail in the nextand last episode of the Indus
(35:31):
Valley.
I realize this was a shorterepisode, but I thought it'd be a
nice primer for when I get intothe various cities that made up
the Indus Valley, if you likewhat you hear and want to donate
to the show.
You can visit us at patreoncomslash history of money banking
(35:52):
trade or you can visit ourwebsite at moneybankingtradecom.
Also, you can help out the showa ton by leaving a five-star
review, along with telling afriend or two Thank you very
much.
Talk to you soon.
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