Timeline of the Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization: early farming villages, the great planned cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, decline, and the 1920s rediscovery.
The Bronze Age Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization flourished across the northwest Indian subcontinent, peaking c. 2600-1900 BCE with planned cities like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, then faded - and was only rediscovered by archaeologists in the 1920s.
Neolithic farming and herding village at Mehrgarh (Balochistan), a key precursor to later Indus urbanism.
Proto-urban villages across the Indus basin adopt standardized pottery, weights, and early planning.
Full urbanization: planned cities, drainage, standardized bricks and weights, seals, and the undeciphered Indus script.
One of the largest Indus cities, on the Indus in Sindh, famous for its citadel, street grid, and the Great Bath.
Watertight brick tank sealed with bitumen, likely used for ritual bathing - the most famous Indus structure.
Indus seals and goods reach Mesopotamia, where texts mention trade with a land called Meluhha, widely identified with the Indus region.
City in Gujarat engineered large reservoirs and channels to harvest scarce water - inscribed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.
Coastal Gujarat town with a basin many archaeologists interpret as a tidal dockyard linked to maritime trade.
Cities shrink or are abandoned; the integrated urban network gives way to regional cultures such as Cemetery H.
Last Late Harappan regional cultures fade, closing roughly two millennia of the Indus tradition.
British explorer Charles Masson documents the ruins at Harappa, centuries before their true age is understood.
Alexander Cunningham founds the ASI; his later visits to Harappa miss the site's real antiquity.
Daya Ram Sahni begins systematic ASI excavations at Harappa in Punjab - the first dig into the lost civilization.
R. D. Banerji excavates Mohenjo-daro in Sindh; matching finds from the two distant sites point to one unknown culture.
ASI chief John Marshall announces a forgotten civilization in the Illustrated London News (20 September 1924).
The three-volume 'Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization' becomes the founding synthesis of Indus archaeology.
Mortimer Wheeler introduces rigorous stratigraphic excavation methods at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.
S. R. Rao identifies Lothal in Gujarat as the ASI hunts for Harappan sites within India after Partition.
B. B. Lal and B. K. Thapar excavate Kalibangan in Rajasthan, revealing both Early and Mature Harappan layers.
R. S. Bisht leads major excavations at Dholavira, exposing its unique stone architecture and reservoirs.
Excavations at Rakhigarhi (Haryana) reveal the most extensive known Harappan site, larger than Mohenjo-daro.
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