India the First Civilization

Overview

As Indian independence approached in the first half of the 20th century, British archaeologists John Hubert Marshall and Sir Mortimer Wheeler worked at breakneck speed to understand the great ancient civilisations of the subcontinent, which the British Empire had ruled for a mere 200 years. The British archaeologists and their Indian colleagues succeeded in identifying the Indus civilisation, a sophisticated culture up to 4000 years old whose towns and cities built of clay bricks extended over a vast area - apparently without the use of a written language. But as they worked on, in peace and then in war, the archaeologists found themselves faced with a familiar question. Was this advanced Indus civilisation peaceful, or was it forged and maintained through cruel wars?