Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained • Hacker News Board

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#51

Post by amalag » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 2:06 PM UTC

rd108 wrote: post #7

tokenadult wrote: post #2

The interesting submitted article refers to "and as-yet undeciphered writing," but there is considerable controversy about whether or not the Indus Valley script http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script is a writing system at all, rather than the kind of ornamentation from a pre-proto-writing stage known in several other sites of ancient civilizations. (As a reality check, we can remember that several regions of the…

Is there a real controversy over whether the Harappan script is writing vs. "a kind of ornamentation"? Your comment smacks of condescension but I'm sure you can just provide citations. Your (wikipedia) article contains some arguments based on relative frequency of symbols, but is controverted by studies of modern pictographic languages with similar characteristic (e.g. Chinese.) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/…

I also find it strange that historians cannot accept that the extremely complex language of sanskrit is not accepted as the origin of latin and european languages. The study of it takes years and is very fine tuned. Yet so called historians say there is a 'proto' language which is before it which has mysteriously disappeared. Unless you agree with this hypothesis, you will have no chance of going anywhere in common academic circles.

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#52

Post by rprasad » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 7:04 PM UTC

einhverfr wrote: post #43

rprasad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the globalization of the food supply, climate change was the cause of death for many of the great ancient and not-so-ancient civilizations. Getting fresh food from any part of the world is (comparatively) trivial nowadays, but even 150 years ago, most food spoiled on the way to the local market a few miles down the road.

I doubt that most food spoiled on the way to the local market. Also note that a lot of traditional methods of preservation (everything from many forms of cheesemaking to many forms of pickling such as that involved in making sauerkraut) are basically controlled spoilage.

While we may think of 5 miles as a quick trip, back then a 5 mile trip to the local market would have taken most of a day (and the trip itself could be a multi-day event, which is why we vote on Tuesdays). This is on top of any time the food has spent in storage between harvesting/butchering and the trip. Over that period of time, even cheese, salted meats, and jams will begin to spoil.

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#53

Post by ktizo » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 11:05 PM UTC

einhverfr wrote: post #42

ktizo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be conflating the current issue of anthropogenic climate change with the historic fact that many different cultures' success or failure has been almost entirely subject to the whims of climatic variation.

When someone pins climate change as the sole cause of cultures' rise or falls, I tend to wonder what bridge they are selling. Climate places real constraints on cultures but I am not sure that these are ones which necessarily dictate success or failure. If it did, Roald Amudsen should have suffered the same fate as John Franklin.

Not the sole cause of cultures' rise or falls, but one of the main causes of many cultures' fall, often due to those particular cultures becoming deeply interconnected and unprepared for large scale changes.

The fates of individual polar explorers is not particularly relevant to the fall of large city building cultures. And anyway Amundsen disappeared while on a rescue mission to find a crashed polar airship, so did suffer a similar fate, just a bit later.

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#54

Post by einhverfr » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 12:12 AM UTC

rprasad wrote: post #52

einhverfr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that most food spoiled on the way to the local market. Also note that a lot of traditional methods of preservation (everything from many forms of cheesemaking to many forms of pickling such as that involved in making sauerkraut) are basically controlled spoilage.

While we may think of 5 miles as a quick trip, back then a 5 mile trip to the local market would have taken most of a day (and the trip itself could be a multi-day event, which is why we vote on Tuesdays). This is on top of any time the food has spent in storage between harvesting/butchering and the trip. Over that period of time, even cheese, salted meats, and jams will begin to spoil.

I am not sure of any of that, btw.

First there are a lot of foods that don't spoil that way (i.e. beginning to rot), such as fresh fruits, fresh veggies, grains, etc. Those are still relatively friendly to transport to market.

Secondly I have taken cheese, dry salami (salted, fermented meat), etc., backpacking and it is fine without refridgeration after a week even in the summer. These may sweat some of their fat but that's not the same as spoiling.

Third, I don't think meats spoil as quickly after slaughter as a lot of us think. I once accidently left a fresh/micro-slaughtered/micro-butchered roast in the back of my car and discovered it three days later. Cooked it and it still tasted fresher than anything I had ever bought at a supermarket. I don't know what the supply chains look like at the supermarket but I doubt they are very short.......

Edit: I could understand the argument that many of the things we would buy at our grocery store would have spoiled on the way to a local market. But if most food would have spoiled on the way to a local market that would have made cities fundamentally untenable. And yet London was a city of about two million people at that time.

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#55

Post by einhverfr » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 4:33 AM UTC

ktizo wrote: post #53

einhverfr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone pins climate change as the sole cause of cultures' rise or falls, I tend to wonder what bridge they are selling. Climate places real constraints on cultures but I am not sure that these are ones which necessarily dictate success or failure. If it did, Roald Amudsen should have suffered the same fate as John Franklin.

Not the sole cause of cultures' rise or falls, but one of the main causes of many cultures' fall, often due to those particular cultures becoming deeply interconnected and unprepared for large scale changes. The fates of individual polar explorers is not particularly relevant to the fall of large city building cultures. And anyway Amundsen disappeared while on a rescue mission to find a crashed polar airship, so did…

I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement "often due to those particular cultures becoming deeply interconnected and unprepared for large scale changes." In other words, the social complexity makes a culture vulnerable, and climate/agriculture pressures can essentially cause failure where none was possible before. That's close to Prof. Tainter's thesis, actually, and he points out that there are very few cases of large-scale cultures addressing these problems by simplifying but when they do they can survive.

The example he gives in his lectures is the so-called Byzantine Dark Ages which were a deliberate transformation of the Byzantine Empire in response to the Arab invasions (going from a professional army to peasant militias, etc).

But most cultures that I know of aren't even proximally wiped out by climate change. The Persians were conquered by the Romans on the battlefield, as were the Gauls. The Western Roman Empire appears to have collapsed primarily from inward pressures, not outward ones, and the agricultural failures there were the result of factors other than climate change or even man-made environmental damages.

Some cultures do fail due primarily to environmental reasons (Greenland and republican Iceland being the best examples), but I don't think they represent the general rule. Iceland never was a particularly fertile place to grow things (vast amounts of environmental damage were the result of grazing animals simply because there's not much else you can do in Iceland), and neither was Greenland even before the Little Ice Age....

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#56

Post by rprasad » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

einhverfr wrote: post #54

rprasad wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we may think of 5 miles as a quick trip, back then a 5 mile trip to the local market would have taken most of a day (and the trip itself could be a multi-day event, which is why we vote on Tuesdays). This is on top of any time the food has spent in storage between harvesting/butchering and the trip. Over that period of time, even cheese, salted meats, and jams will begin to spoil.

I am not sure of any of that, btw. First there are a lot of foods that don't spoil that way (i.e. beginning to rot), such as fresh fruits, fresh veggies, grains, etc. Those are still relatively friendly to transport to market. Secondly I have taken cheese, dry salami (salted, fermented meat), etc., backpacking and it is fine without refridgeration after a week even in the summer. These may sweat some of their fat but…

My friend, let me introduce you to the wonders of modern science. Fresh fruits and vegetables are now heavily exposed to pesticides and other substances that retard decay (even organic foods, though the exposure is lessened). Cheeses now include preservatives that did not exist 100 years ago. Dried meat has always had a lengthy lifespan, since the lack of moisture prevents decay (see the 1-year old McD's burger at SeriousEats), but today dried meat has the additional benefit of sealable, airtight packaging to prevent unnecessary exposure to moisture. (This also applies to fresh fruits and veggies). Many organic foods dispense with pesticides but irradiate the food with UV prior to transport.

London and other European cities were never as far from their food sources as American cities are. They also benefited from well-maintained road systems (i.e, paved roads) that lessened transit times.

Though as I said, "most" food spoiled on the way to market, not all. Food spoilage is still a problem today, but we have both minimized the spoilage, maximized production, and adopted certain techniques so that spoilage generally does not affect downstream food production or sales.

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#57

Post by einhverfr » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 1:09 AM UTC

rprasad wrote: post #56

einhverfr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure of any of that, btw. First there are a lot of foods that don't spoil that way (i.e. beginning to rot), such as fresh fruits, fresh veggies, grains, etc. Those are still relatively friendly to transport to market. Secondly I have taken cheese, dry salami (salted, fermented meat), etc., backpacking and it is fine without refridgeration after a week even in the summer. These may sweat some of their fat but…

My friend, let me introduce you to the wonders of modern science. Fresh fruits and vegetables are now heavily exposed to pesticides and other substances that retard decay (even organic foods, though the exposure is lessened). Cheeses now include preservatives that did not exist 100 years ago. Dried meat has always had a lengthy lifespan, since the lack of moisture prevents decay (see the 1-year old McD's burger at Se…

I am an avid gardener. I have a pretty good idea of how long the plumbs I pick off the tree or the peaches or the grapes, or the veggies from the garden will last without decaying on the counter without refridgeration.

Note wilting is no the same as decaying. Most fresh veggies will wilt. It takes a lot longer to decay though.

Re: Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained

#58

Post by r_jeyakumar » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

This above mentioned Monsoon failure theory is a doubtful correlation. This Monsoon decline theory is absolutely fine,there is no objection to that theory at all. But, only problem is that this monsoon decline theory is being correlated to the fall of Indus Valley Civilization,which is a kind of illogical correlation.

This theory is being slightly far-fetched. The Indus river is a perennial river and it doesn't dry up even in harsh summers because of the melting of glaciers. The river Indus supports nearly 18 crore people even today, can't it have supported a few thousand people 5000 years back? It looks like that there is some misinterpretation here.

There is a possibility that IVC never declined at all. These Indus Valley excavation sites are looking deserted because these sites were used as grave yards from time immemorial by various occupants of these lands.These sites have been wrongly identified as Metropolises, whereas in reality they were only Necropolises. This wrong identification is the reason for confusion surrounding theories like this about IVC. Follow the below given link for detailed information.

https://sites.google.com/site/induscivilizationsite