Indus Valley Timeline

7000 BCE – 600 CE · 5 sites

The Indus (Harappan) civilization built large, drained, brick cities without a deciphered royal inscriptional corpus like Egypt or Mesopotamia. Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and Dholavira are the Atlas entry points; evidence grades matter because so much interpretation rides on urban form.

All sites in this period

Featured

Country Record

Oldest City in Pakistan

Mohenjo-daro

2500 BCE – 1700 BCE

Mohenjo-daro, a principal urban center of the Indus Civilization (c. 2500–1700 BCE), exemplifies advanced Bronze Age urban planning in South Asia with sophisticated water management and standardized architecture.

322

Bronze Age

76

Country Record

Oldest Settlement in Pakistan

Mehrgarh

7000 BCE – 2500 BCE

A Neolithic and Chalcolithic mound on the Kachi plain of Balochistan, Pakistan, with aceramic farming, mudbrick houses, and early cotton and dental evidence that precedes the Indus cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.

111

NeolithicChalcolithicBronze Age

66

Featured

Country Record

Known by the Most Names in Pakistan

Harappa

2600 BCE – 1900 BCE

The city that gave the Indus Valley Civilisation its name — a planned Bronze Age metropolis in what is now Pakistan that housed up to 50,000 people, featured the ancient world's most sophisticated sanitation system, and remained virtually unknown until its rediscovery in 1921.

31

ChalcolithicBronze Age

65

Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Pakistan

Taxila

518 BCE – 600 CE

An ancient city in the Pothohar Plateau of Pakistan where Achaemenid Persia, Alexander's Macedonia, and Mauryan India met — its three successive city sites and Buddhist monasteries document 1,200 years of continuous urban life at the crossroads of the ancient world.

31

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

65

Country Record

Oldest City in India

Dholavira

2650 BCE – 1450 BCE

The best-preserved and most sophisticated city of the Indus Valley Civilisation — a planned Bronze Age metropolis on a remote Gujarat island whose multi-tiered layout, massive reservoirs, and unique signboard inscription make it one of the most revealing archaeological sites in Asia.

31

ChalcolithicBronze Age

62