New radiocarbon dating postpones settlements in the Indus Valley by 2800 years
16.04.2025
Italian version?
A group of French, Italian, and German researchers from institutions such as the Sorbonne University, the National Museum of Natural History, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the University of Padua, the Sapienza University of Rome, and the Goethe University of Frankfurt, has published a study in the journal that redefines the chronology of the beginning of agriculture in the Indus Valley, dating it to around 7000 years ago. The research results are based on new radiocarbon dating of tooth enamel from individuals from 23 Neolithic burials discovered at Mehrgarh, an important archaeological site in Pakistan.
This new dating indicates that the start of the Neolithic, which marks the introduction of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals, is much more recent (by about 2800 years) than previously thought. While the transition to agriculture in the Near East and Europe is well-documented, the details of how and when it spread eastwards to Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia have remained unclear.
"Mehrgarh is the only site in the Indus Valley with extensive evidence of Neolithic settlements, although lacking ceramics, making it a key location for understanding the early history of agriculture in this region," says Luca Bondioli, a professor at the University of Padua and co-author of the study. In the past, researchers believed that the Neolithic period at Mehrgarh began around 10,000 years ago and lasted several thousand years. However, the new radiocarbon dates suggest that the Neolithic at Mehrgarh actually began between 7200 and 6900 years ago and lasted only a few centuries, from two to five at most.
This new chronology challenges previous theories, suggesting that agriculture in the Indus Valley is likely the result of a late arrival of farmers from neighbouring regions. Additionally, the data suggest that the Neolithic deposits at Mehrgarh formed at a faster rate than previously hypothesised. Finally, they indicate that the development and use of pottery in this area began much later than previously thought, not earlier than around 6500 years ago.
Massimo Vidale, a professor of Prehistory of the Near and Middle East at the University of Padua and one of the authors of the article, explains how, thanks to this discovery, "many of the historical reconstructions previously considered as established need to be revised."
The geological complexity and diagenetic processes at Mehrgarh had previously prevented accurate dating of the individuals and the burial context. Now, thanks to advanced carbon-14 dating techniques at the BioArch laboratory of CNRS in Paris, it is possible to obtain precise dating. This has allowed for the temporal placement of research on the mobility and childhood life of Mehrgarh's inhabitants, offering a new perspective on the life of the prehistoric community. The new information on the timing and spread of agriculture in South Asia thus redefines our understanding of its development in the Indus Valley.
