Pre-caste Indian society
Were the people of the Harappan Civilization (HC) Dravidians or Indo-Aryans? Archeologists and scholars are divided over conclusions from the study of the bones and skulls found at various Harappan civilization (HC) sites that extend over western and northwestern India and adjoining areas in Pakistan. Questions surround the political status of the HC. The concept of a ‘state’ is generally accepted to have a centralized economy and leadership, with a hierarchically ranked social system. But the HC covered a large degree of regional diversity. Evidences of a single state concept are usually palaces, temples and differentiated burial sites – All absent in the HC sites, pointing to city-states surrounded by rural hinterlands. Exchange was the key to social organization, given booming, surprisingly well-organized trade with other countries. One 2008 study mapped the movement of raw materials to Harappa; that would be converted into items of popular use, such as jewelry etc., amo...