A recent study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur reveals that the decline of Harappan city Dholavira was caused by drying up of river like Saraswati river and Meghalayan drought. These researchers have for the first time connected the decline of Harappan city Dholavira to the disappearance of a Himalayan snow-fed river which once flowed in the Rann of Kutch. They have been able to connect the dots between the growth and decline of the Dholavira, located in the Rann with this river which resembles the Himalayan river Saraswati. The study has just been published online in prestigious Wiley Journal of Quaternary Science, according to information shared by the institute. The research team that also include researchers from Archaeological Survey of India, Deccan College PGRI Pune, Physical research laboratory, and Department of Culture, Gujarat, besides researchers from IIT Kharagpur, dated archaeological remains from all the stages and also inferred climate shifts through time which led to the rise and fall of the Harappan city. “Our data suggest that prolific mangroves grew around the Rann and distributaries of Indus or other palaeochannels dumped water in the Rann near southern margin of Thar Desert. This is the first direct evidence of glacial fed rivers quite like the supposedly mythological Saraswati, in the vicinity of Rann” said IIT Kharagpur's Anindya Sarkar and the lead researcher. Dr. Ravi Bhushan and Navin Juyal from PRL, Ahmedabad dated the carbonates from human bangles, fish otolith and molluscan shells by accelerator mass spectrometer and found that the site was occupied from pre-Harappan period to ~3800 years before present i.e. Late Harappan period. The Dholavirans were probably the original inhabitants in the region, had a fairly advanced level of culture even at its earliest stage. They built spectacular city and survived for nearly 1700 years by adopting water conservation suggested the researchers. #ourkutch #dholavira #harappancivilization (at Naliya, Gujarat, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/B62CBkWBHtN/?igshid=1n57ll01znbyc
