Keep ideology out of new archaelogical finds
The study by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and the Archaeological Survey of India that has found that the Indus Valley Civilisation — more accurately, the Indus Saraswati Civilisation — is older than previously believed will have a profound impact on our understanding of ancient Indian history. In fact, when one views this alongside the ongoing excavations in Tamil Nadu's Sivaganga district which have thrown up a massive and well-developed urban settlement that could back up literary narratives from the Sangam era, it puts an all new focus on the evolution of global ancient civilisations in general.
Scientists have now used advanced carbon dating techniques on ancient pottery shards and found that the artefacts found in Haryana are at least 8,000 years old, and not about 5,000 years old. This makes the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation older than the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations even which rose on the banks of the Nile and the land between the mighty Euphrates and the Tigris rivers respectively. This is a major development wherein the dates are not being moved by a just a few hundred years or so; instead, an epochal revision is underway which must lead to a rethink of how we understand our civilisations to have evolved.
For example, the study indicates while climate change may have been one reason why the civilisation went into decline, it wasn't the only reason — in fact, evidence suggests that the people adapted to the changing conditions, primarily a weaker monsoon, by shifting from water-intensive crops to drought-resistant crops. The latter, however, had low yields which could have led not to the collapse but, instead, a disintegration and decentralisation of the ancient civilisation. Sure, these narratives are still to be fully explored; but the key is to approach the new evidence with an open mind. In other words, keep political ideology out of the narrative and let scientific research take the lead.
Of course, this is easier said than done, as evidenced by the stubborn refusal of certain sections of the left to accept that the insidious Aryan invasion theory perpetuated by some mainstream Marxist historians has now been thoroughly debunked. The Saraswati has also faced a similar problem — it is still derisively described as a ‘mythical Vedic river' even though there is now enough evidence, including satellite data from the Indian Space Research Organisation, to substantiate that its existence as described in the Vedas and the Puranas. In fact, the recent IIT Kharagpur-ASI study, which was published in the prestigious Nature journal, offers strong evidence that the ancient civilisation, earlier believed to have centred around Harappa and Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan, and lothal, Dholavira, and Kalibangan in India, was in fact spread over a much larger part of the country and possibly alongside the River Saraswati, which disappeared about 4,000 years ago.
