Natural Environment as a Key Factor of Indus Valley Civilization Downfall

This research paper will focus on the impact that the natural environment has on ancient civilization societies. In order to see proof of the dynamic relationship between environment and rise or declines of societies, we will look at two different civilization sites.Overall we are looking for proof that people in ancient times made social decisions, based on their physical environments.

The Indus Valley Civilization has many time frame suggestions, but it approximately lasted from 3300-1300 BCE. Mughal in his research paper The Decline of the Indus Civilization And the Late Harappan Period in the Indus Valley mentions how it is an interpretative term in content to distinguish the later stage of the Harappan socio-cultural development which followed the 'Urban' stage (Mature Harappan). Meaning that although we do not know much about the transitions of the pre-urban period to the urban stage of the Harappan period, we do know that settlement and population growth occurred. Therefore prosperity within the Indus Valley Civilization existed. However since it did eventually end, we know that its time of prosperity declined. But why did the civilization fall? According to Mughal the strongest piece of evidence was the natural physical affects the Indus Valley faced towards the end. With the help of another researcher Professor G. F. Dales, he agrees that “tectonic disturbances creating an uplift across the Indus River downstream, created a vast lake that engulfed the city which ultimately led to its decline. Despite objections to this explanation, the Greater Indus Valley does fall within an active seismic zone, causing frequent changes in the river regimes”. He later explains that people migrated because of the terrain change, which then affected the economy, creating a weaker state society. The change in environment ultimately affected the peoples livelihood, and there can be no society in an area that is flooded or having large amounts of migration occur. Similar to the case of the Old Kingdom society in Egypt, we see that ancient societies heavily relied on their physical environments in order to thrive. Which is why when their main agricultural sources are no longer an option because of natural disasters, societies tend to decline.

Karl August Wittfogel a professor of Chinese history coins an interesting term that I believe supports the idea of a strong relationship between a stable settled society and its natural environment. In his reading, The Rise and Fall of Civilizations mentions the term “hydraulic agriculture”. His main definition and understanding of it consists of, “a system of farming which depends on large-scale and government-directed water control. The system is managed by an inordinately strong government”. In his second part of his definition he also mentions that, “the term State can be applied to a government that on the basis of a sufficient Surplus is operated by a substantial number of full-time specialist civil and military officials”. What we can gather from his definition, is that ancient civilizations only maintain a strong government era, if it has an existing hydraulic agriculture that produces a sufficient surplus for the people. In ancient societies terrain is what will determine how strong a government can be. If the people do not thrive or prosper because of the climate, terrain, or hydraulic system, the civilization will proceed to decline.

Taking everything that we have discussed we see how important geographical location, hydraulic agriculture, and population retention is what determines whether an ancient society is going to prosper or fail. The natural environment definitely shapes what a civilization will experience. With the help of Mughal we saw that the Indus Valley Civilization ended because flooding pushed people to migrate and abandon their form of government. Wittfogel solidified for us how a strong central government is what keeps a society together, and if the people decide to abandon it, the civilizations tend to fail. Going back, before any type of society can be formed through a strong central authority system, the geographical location is what will determine if a population will gather or not. Overall we can conclude that the natural physical environments of a geographical location are what will determine prosperity or failure of an ancient civilization.