Section+2-3+Planned+Cities+on+the+Indus

=__Section 2-3: Planned Cities on the Indus:__= =Key Words:=
 * __Subcontinent__: Large part of a continent, or continents.
 * __Monsoon__: Seasonal winds.
 * __Harappan Civilization__: Many discoveries made by archeologists.
 * __Levees__: An barrier built to prevent a flooding river.

=Key People:=

=Key Terms:=
 * The Geography of the Indian Subcontinent:**
 * The Indian Subcontinent is made up of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, all of which are surrounded by large mountains-the Himalayan Mountains.


 * Rivers, Mountains, and Plains:**
 * The tall mountains and desert kept invaders out of the Indus Valley, which is made up of two rivers, the Indus River and the Ganges river, and because of the desert, it is only possible to farm along the water the Indus River provides in the lower Indus Valley.
 * The rivers carry both water and silt for farming, and the rivers and the northern land it provides good farming land to is called the Indo-Gangetic Valley and is 1,700 miles long.
 * The plateau in the southern peninsula is created by the two rivers, smaller mountains, is called the Decca Plateau, and is both very dry and, in some parts, tropical.


 * Monsoons:**
 * From October to February the monsoon winds come from the northeast and head west, blowing dry air, from mid-June until October the monsoon winds come from the east and go south, they carry moisture, which causes storms, which can cause floods, and unless the summer monsoons come around, there can be droughts, which is a big farming problem.


 * Environmental Challenges:**
 * Challenges: unpredictable floods, brought silt, rivers changing courses, the weather the monsoons brought were also unpredictable.


 * Civilization Emerges on the Indus:**
 * Most of the civilization is unknown in the Indus Valley, this is because we still haven't translated their written language, the evidence that the archeologists dig up, but most of the sites have been washed away from the floods.


 * Earliest Arrivals:**
 * Historians aren't sure, but their guesses for how human traveled to the Indus Valley includes coming from Africa by sea, or humans may have migrated from the North, but evidence of domesticated goats and sheep were found from 7000 B.C. and people were farming by 3200 B.C. along the river.


 * Planned Cities:**
 * Around 2500 B.C., people in the Indus Valley began to build their first cities, building levees, then raised cities into "islands" when the levees didn't work. The civilization along the Indus River is sometimes called the Harappan Civilization because over 100 cities were found by archeologists.
 * The cities along the Indus River were specifically planned, and were made like a grid system.
 * They built an amazing plumbing a sewage systems and evidence shows that they had a strong central government.


 * Harrapan Planning:**
 * Harappa is a good example of the good planning: it is built on bricks because of flooding, and a wall three and a half miles long.
 * Some of the streets were as wide as 30 feet, walls divided property, houses were different sizes, which were put into blocks, and had sewage systems.


 * Harrapan Culture:**
 * The culture in the Indus Valley is based off of artifacts, and was based off of culture.


 * Language:**
 * The language used is made up of 400 symbols, found on stamps, carved stones, and seals and has been undecipherable because there have been no bilingual documents found. it is believed that the symbols stand for sounds and objects, some are by themselves and other have been combined.


 * Culture:**
 * Few weapons were found, which means little fighting, homemade toys and clay pieces suggest that they couldn't afford to make things that they didn't need and they all had the same or similar religions and culture.
 * Because of the carvings of animals on seals, toys, and more, it suggests that animals were important in the culture, but some of the drawings are of parts of multiple different animals.


 * Role of Religion:**
 * Believed that the rulers were close with religion, that there culture was a theocracy, but no temples, but there has been discoveries that of things similar to modern Hinduism.


 * Trade:**
 * Thriving trade, the Indus River was a great transportation and cotton was expensive since few new how to grow it.
 * Because the Indus River flows into the ocean, they could trade with foreign countries, trading began around 2600 B.C. and ended around 1800 B.C.


 * Indus Valley Culture Ends:**
 * Around 1750, the cities began to decay, and they weren't rediscovered until the 1970s, which is also when the plates moved causing earthquakes and floods and the the course of the Indus River to change.
 * What might have caused people to leave the cities includes exhausted soil, which means no more farming, one of the rivers drying up, causing cities to leave because of no more trading, and natural disasters.
 * One more reason for the Indus people to leave is invaders: in 1500 B.C. the Aryans came from the north, which influenced their civilization quite a bit.