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"Too much addition"

What do you want

@Fowler&fowler: please! What do you want? Stop any improvement by simply reverting? You've seen the link at the top of the talk to WP:BOLD, I guess? But, to answer your request:

• Lead:

• Notes: I've moved c.q. duplicated some extensive notes from the lead into the text. They're awkward when editing, and are better of in the body of the article.
• Aridification: I split this into two lines, and moved it to the short descriptions of the Integration Era and the Localisation Era.
• "At is's peak"-lines: this is better of in a chronological sequence, which I have provided by adding information on the various Era's. This gives a better overview.
• Nomenclatura: I've moved "There were earlier and later cultures[...] to distinguish it from these cultures" downward, and added info on the nomenclatura of the periodisation, since this is also in the article, and provides an intro to the various Eras.
• Eras: I've added short pieces of info on the four Eras and the post-Harappan phase, to give a better overview; the IVC/T is more than alone the Integration Era, and all four eras are described in the article.
• Language: I've moved this to the Integration-part, where it topically belongs; it is also treated there in the article.

• Geography section: moved upward, in line with the order of info in the lead.
• Chronology:

• I've added info, using the contemporary terminology of Eras, in addition to the older nomenclatura of Early, Mature and Late. Quote Erdosy (1995), '[the Indus Valley Tradition nomenclature] "is much more informative than the traditional Early/Mature/Late Harappan classification which should now be discarded."' That was in 1995; Kenoyer (1991) used it; Coningham & Young (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia, Cambridge University Press, uses the same terminology.
• I have also added dates for the Regionalisation Era, since there are quite some differences in the dating, and it differs from the older dating for the Early Harappan Phase.

• Headers: I've added the Era-nomenclatura to the headers.
• Regionalisation Era - Early Harappan: added "According to Manuel, "the most significant development of this period was the shift in population from the uplands of Baluchistan to the floodplains of the Indus Valley."[15]"
• Integration Era - Mature Harappan: I've moved/copied info on the relation between monsoon and urban growth to this section, to give insight into why urbanisation took place.
• Collapse and Late Harappan:

• changed header into "Localisation Era - Late Harappan";
• split into subsections, for better overview;
• re-ordered info, for better readability;
• moved text on "The Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed" into notes, since that short sentence itself is enough to provide an introduction on the causes for decline/relocation.

• Legacy: changed into "Post-Harappan," which is more apt; moved part of the previous section into this section.

I hope that this answers your concerns. Please take my concern serious too: I put a lot of time into these edits, and it feels not good at all when they are simply brushed aside with the short notice "Too much addition by Joshua Jonathan especially in the lead, without previous discussion on the talk page. Reverting." You are familiair with WP:BOLD; there is no requirement to discuss each and every change beforehand at the talk. And to look forward: WP:BRD does not mean you simply revert everything you deem unfit, but urges to improve where possible and/or necessary. So, if you think that any of those edits is not an improvement, please let me know. Thank you. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:17, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

NB: take especially a look at the "Localisation Era - Late Harappan", to see how much better it reads. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:20, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:BRD does mean that if an editor over 24 hours adds large chunks of prose, several of which say in their edit summary, "copied from ***," and exemplified in this doozy, and, thereafter, if another editor reverts this addition, it is the reversion which is regarded as BOLD, not the initial day-long infraction.

Please also read WP:LEADLENGTH. What does it say? It says maximum lead length is four paragraphs. It does not say a tightly written lead of three and a half paragraphs that has stood in the article for several years can be blithely fattened overnight with meandering one, which moreover lacks cohesion and coherence, and is rendered in eight paragraphs of faltering prose.

What exactly are you attempting to do? Write a term paper and, during its writing, copy each addition, dawning, or epiphany into a Wikipedia article? This is an encyclopedia. It's writing is beholden generally to written and unwritten conventions of encyclopedia writing and more particularly to its own rules and guidelines. A high-level article (a level-3 vital article, in WP jargon) is not a survey of recent literature, in which an editor can stuff every recent addition to the literature of any field remotely related. Find me another tertiary source on the Indus Valley Civilization which waxes eloquent about the "most common lactose tolerance mutation" in the Indian population, especially one that also forgets to mention that 80% or more of the Indian population is lactose intolerant, that the mutation, if it exists, let alone the others not so "common," affects a small proportion of South Asians.

Please read WP:RECENTISM. Please read is several times. This is not a survey of the scholarly and semi-scholarly literature of the last five years in the fields of computational human-genetics, paleo-geography, historical linguistics, and so forth, whose authors' list comprises at least one dozen names, no more than one of which is a token archaeologist, and which mention the "Indus Valley Civilization" somewhere between their "introduction" and "conclusion." We can all engage in this exercise. What Wikipedia loses in the process, however, is balance and perspective. Consider the obtuse section headings you have introduced: "Early Harappan," that had stood in this article for over ten years, which had stood in the article for ten years, and in the discipline of IVC studies for much longer, has been changed to "Regionalization Era – Early Harappan," "Mature Harappan" to "Integration Era – Mature Harappan," "Late Harappan" to "Localization Era – Late Harappan." If you are looking for meaningful chronology, see instead Rita Wright's general chronology: Early Food Producing, Pre-Urban period, Urban period, Post-urban period.

How about coherence and cohesion? In the sixth lead paragraph you say, "Aridification of this region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for the urbanisation associated with the civilisation." In the seventh lead paragraph you say, " Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward." What sense is the reader to make of this? In the original version, which I had written some two or three years ago, the second paragraph said, "Aridification of this region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for the urbanisation associated with the civilisation, but eventually also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward." Do you see the difference? Mine is clear and meaningful. Yours is illogical.

Bold editing does not mean that an editor can dump garbage in an article, and the rest of us then have to spend the rest of our lives cleaning up after him. Read the India page history section. Why does it use well-worn textbooks or monographs for sourcing? Because for a field as wide as India, if we were using the latest and greatest ruminations of youngest and brightest researchers published in the latest and greatest mega journals which have at least an 80% acceptance rate and a turn-around time of no more three months, not to mention processing fee of $2,000, we could pretty much make the wildest assertions and find a source attesting to their truth. Again, this an encyclopedia article. I suggest you back off from writing a term paper, revert to the version that had stood in this article for a long time, and tell us what exactly you are attempting to do. I am traveling, and will be for some time, so there's little I can do now, but I guarantee you I will eventually pick apart every bit of undigested information you have added to this article. If you find this comment blunt, please be aware that it is the result of exasperation at the endless edits you are making, all characteristically composed of undigested information, and all bordering on original research, across a range of ancient South-Asia-related topics. Meanwhile I will leave a post at WT:INDIA. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

What you are specifically saying is:

• The lead, according to you, is too long. Yet, WP:LEADLENGTH does not say "maximum lead length is four paragraphs," it says (emphasis mine):

"The appropriate length of the lead section depends on the total length of the article. As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs. The length of the lead should conform to readers' expectations of a short, but useful and complete, summary of the topic."

Anyway, if we follow your preferences, we should:

• Skip or shorten the additional information on the nomenclatura, which is surely worth considering, but does not mean that we simple revert to your preferred version. There are two different classifications, and the Era-classification seems to be preferred for quite a while. It's not recentism to mention that; it's relevant.

• Suggestion for shortening:

"There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilisation. The Harappan civilisation is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures. The classification of the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase is an older nomenclature,[15][16] primarily based on Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, assuming an evolutionary sequence.[16] The mature civilisation was preceded by local agricultural villages, from where the river plains were populated. Shaffer divided this broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era," and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which correspond roughly with the Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases.[17][16]"

into

"The Mature or Urban Harappan Civilisation was preceded in the same area by the Early or Pre-Urban Harappan culture, and succeededed by the Late or Post-Urban Harappan culture. The Early or Pre-Urban Harappan culture was preceded by local agricultural villages, from where the river plains were populated. Shaffer divided this broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era," and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which correspond roughly with the Early or Pre-Urban Harappan, Mature or Urban Harappan, and Late or Post-Urban Harappan phases."

• Skip or shorten the additional info on the Food Producing Era, the Regionalisation Era, and the Localisation Era. That's also worth considering, for the sake of length, but all this info is part of the article, and is treated in texts and articles.

• You have a point about the lactose-tolerance, though that's not a recent edit. And it is made in the context of influences of the Near Eastern Neolithic, which is relevant. Kenoyer (1991) says that older studies explained the development of the IVC from influences from the Middle East, while more recent studies point ot local developments. That's a relevant substitution for this info. Note, though, that I added this info in response to pov-pushing regarding Lukacs and Hemphill; I did track the sources on that piece of info, and presented it correctly; some appreciation from your side for that effort would be welcome.
• Regarding recentism:

• I don't know from where comes your list of "computational human-genetics, paleo-geography, historical linguistics." I've added info on the classification-systems; Shaffer is not "recentism."
• The fact that "Early Harappan" "had stood in this article for over ten years" is no argument at all not to change it. The Era-classification is as relevant, if not more relevant, as the older Phases-classification. See the Erdosy-quote.
• Why is Wright's classification to be preferred?

• Regarding aridification: I love that sentence, it's very clear and informative indeed. It's not illogical, though, to split it, and to put the first part at the Integration-Era, and the second part at the Localisation-Era, as I did. You didn't notice? Anyway, I also don't mind putting that back as it was before.
• Regarding "dump garbage": please tell me how Coningham & Young (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia, Cambridge University Press, is "garbage" or "the latest and greatest ruminations of youngest and brightest researchers published in the latest and greatest mega journals."
• You didn't respond to my explanation about the "Localisation Era - Late Harappan", which is more concise now, and is an elaboration of your sentence on aridification. To give a thematical summary of the previous version:

• Paragraph 1: decline and Wheeler's Aryan Invasion in one paragraph;
• Paragraph 2: drought (cause); skeletons (consequence); more potential causes; Cemetery H culture as follow-up culture;
• Paragraph 3-5: follow-up cultures (post-Harappan)
• Paragraph 6: climate change and monsoon (causes); tectonic event (unsourced); specific paper, saying that the Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed;
• Paragraph 7: monsoon again
• "a Harappan site called Rojdi in Rajkot district of Saurashtra" - but that piece of info seems to be wildly out of place anyway.

Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:50, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I've moved back upward the sentence on aridification, and removed the lactose-comment. Which leaves the main-points to be the classification-schemes, and the reworking of the "Localisation Era - Late Harappan" section. NB: the "Continuity"-subsection and the "Post-Harappan"-section need fine-tuning; some info in the "Continuity"-subsection may actually belong in the "Post-Harappan"-section, and vice-versa, and there is at least one doublure. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

"Demic diffusions and urban growth": you didn't mention it explicitly, but tnatb section may indeed be recentism. It seemed relevant, given the weight of Underhill, but it's out of line with the mainstream views on R1a; I've removed it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:07, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have time for item by item responses. Let me just say that Coningham & Young is one book, which uses a certain type of terminology first used by Shaffer in some papers. Not everyone is on board about using that terminology. For example C & Y refer to the the period 1200–600 BCE as "Re-emergence of regional differentiation." Are we then to change every mention on Wikipedia of the late Vedic period to "the period of re-emergence of regional differentiation" instead?

We already had a discussion on this talk page whether the page name should be changed to "Indus Valley Tradition." The page move was not successful. I said in that discussion that you are welcome to create a separate page on the Indus Valley tradition, as long as it is not a major content fork. These chapter headings you are using are ones of the "Indus Valley Tradition." This page is preeminently about the Indus Valley Civilization, or the Mature Harappan, and focuses on the period 2600BCE to 1900 BCE. Obviously, it has a prologue and an epilogue. But it does not mean that we can expand the scope of the article to so much beyond its long-standing focus, that we end up creating a Indus Valley Tradition page in disguise. Since I am short of time, let me refer you to some survey articles for comparison:

• Sinopoli, Carla M. (2015), "Ancient South Asian cities in their regions", in Norman Yoffee (ed) (ed.), The Cambridge World History, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, pp. 319–342, ISBN 978-0-521-19008-4 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
• Possehl, Gregory L. (2002), "Harappans and hunters: economic interaction and specialization in prehistoric India", in Kathleen D. Morrison, Laura L. Junker (eds) (ed.), Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia: Long-Term Histories, Cambridge University Press, pp. 62–76, ISBN 978-0-521-01636-0 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
• Kenoyer, J. Mark (2012), "Early Indus," "Indus Neolithic," "Mature Indus", in Peter N. Peregrine, Melvin Ember (eds) (ed.), Encyclopedia of Prehistory: Volume 8: South and Southwest Asia, Springer, pp. 116–121, 151–155, 271–283, ISBN 978-1-4615-0023-0 {{citation}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

In addition, we already have the introductions and conclusions of text books or monographs of Ratnagar, Allchin and Allchi, Kenoyer, Possehl, Coningham and Young, and Wright. If, in the consensus of these summaries, a topic, a term, etc is not being used, then we are better off not giving it much weight. The new-fangled topics may appear in a small subsection, "Other views," or "summary of recent multi-disciplinary research," but not in any central place in the article, which would be undue mention. By that criterion, Shaffer's periodization cannot be used in section heading, much less in the lead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, and the sources; I'll let your response sink in, and try to access those sources.

• Which terminology is to be used may be a topic for discussion, but I'll let that one sink in too; with some distance in time, and some reflection, I may as well change my mind.
• Creating a separate page on IVT may be a good idea, but that should focus then on the processes, I guess, and maybe give more links to various sites and Phases/Eras.
• Are there specific topics or terms you're referring to? Kenoyer does use Shaffer's periodisation, in the 1991 article which was already being used as a reference. But I'll try to access those sources too.

Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:15, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not see this in time. I just made a whiny post on WT:INDIA and I apologize for its tone, but I think a discussion "on how traditional should encyclopedias be in their treatment of a topic" is a good one. Thanks again. There might be more contributions here, to which I may or may not be able to respond, but I hope they will be productive. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Could you also read, later, Talk:Indus Valley Civilisation#8000 year old claim, on the discrepancy in dating between Early Harappan Phase and Regionalisation Era? If the early Harappan Phase starts at 3300 BCE, how can the Regionalisation Era start at ca. 5,000 BCE? Talk:Indus Valley Civilisation#Bhirrana again is related to this question: how do these periodisations correlate; and which datings are accepted, or moving? And, if these data do not correlate, why then prefer the term "Early Harappan" and its related dating, when multiple reliable sources prefer the term "Regionalisation Era" and its earlier date? Thanks. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:38, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the scope of the article, c.q. IVC "versus" IVT:

• Sinopoli: "Research on these sites [...] has generated a vast literature [...] It is not my purpose here to comprehensively review this literature. Instead, I focus on a single issue." P.322, header: "Indus chronologies and the pre-urban setting." First sentence under that header: "The urban phase of the Indus tradition".
• Possehl: p.62: "The "Mature" or Urban Phase of the Civilisation"; "The urban phase of the Harappan cultural tradition".
• Kenoyer : treats the "Early Indus," that is, pre-Harappan and early Harappan; it shows that the various phases of this period overlap each other chronologically, just like Shaffer stated.

Regarding Shaffer's terminology: several of the "text books or monographs" are inaccessible for me, but the results so far:

• Allchin, Bridget (1997). Origins of a Civilization: The Prehistory and Early Archaeology of South Asia. New York: Viking. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) - only fragmentary access; seems to prefer the Early Harappan terminology, but p.209 says: "...post-Harappan, but we have followed Possehl in calling the period "post-urban."
• Allchin, Raymond (ed.) (1995). The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States. New York: Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help), "with contributions from George Erdosy, R.A.E. Coningham, D.K. Chakrabarti and Bridget Allchin"

• ch.3 (F.R. Allchin), p.29: prefers "post-urban" over "Late Harappan."
• Erdosy (1995), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, p.4: [the Indus Valley Tradition nomenclature] "is much more informative than the traditional Early/Mature/Late Harappan classification which should now be discarded." (I can't access p.4; I trust the reference is correct).

• Kenoyer (1991)(article): "At present, the most commen terms for the periods between circa 4000 and 1500 BCE are Pre-Harappan, Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan." (p.333) Kenoyer then mentions Shaffer's periodisation and uses this one.
• Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1998). Ancient cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-577940-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) - inaccessible for me.
• Possehl, Gregory L. (11 November 2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 978-0-7591-1642-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) - p.3: "I have termed the 6,000 to 7,000 years from the beginnings of food production to the Early Iron Age in Pakistan and northwestern India the "Indus Age." It is the story of this long durée that unfolds through the pages of this book."
• Coningham and Young (2015): they use the Regionalisation etc. terminology. At p.26-27 (p.25 is inaccessible for me) they explain why:

"A critical feature of Shaffer's developmental framework was replacing the traditional Mesolithic/Neolithic, 'Chalcolithic'/Early Harappan, Mature Harappan and Late Harappan terminology with Eras which were intended to reflect the longer-term changes or processes which provided the platform for eventual complexity and urbanisation [...] Notably, Shaffer's categorisation also allowed scholars to frame sites such as Mehrgarh, accepted by all as partly ancestral to the Indus cities within a distinctly pervasive Indus tradition rather than lying outside a Pre-Urban or incipient urban phase." (p.27)

P.27 also says:

"Shaffer's chronological framework has been successively adopted by a number of scholars [...] Other scholars, whilst not adopting it entirely, have developed parallel themes, and Rita Wright's recent volume on the ancient Indus followed a similar framework".

Yet, they also note that "not all archaeologists have, by any means, adopted Shaffer's framework", referring to Possehl as an example. But they also note that Possehl mixed three different periodisations and classifications, just like "others, such as Singh (2008)" (all p.27).

• Wright: pre-urban etc.

So, several terminologies are being used in these sources. None of them uses singularly the "early Harappan" etc. terminology. Allchin & Allchin and Wright use the pre-urban etc. terminology. Shaffer's terminology is being used, by Erdosy, Kenoyer, and Coninngham & Young, and even explicitly preferred by Erdosy and Kenoyer; it cannot be called "new-fangled" (nice word; it translates into Ducth as "nieuwbakken," 'recently baked'). And Posshel uses yet another term, "Indus Age." Therefore, I'm not convinced yet about this Early Harappan etc. terminology.

All in all, it's clear that no textbook or monograph treats the IVC proper in isolation; they all put it in the wider context of the IV tradition. And at least four different terminologies are being used: Early-Mature-Late Harappan; pre/post/urban; Indus tradition; Indus age. What's more, multiple sources use terms from various terminologies alongside each other, like "The urban phase of the Indus tradition", "The urban phase of the Harappan cultural tradition". So, no objections against the usage of Shaffer's terminology; no objection also against the combined usage of "Regionalisation - early Harappan," which could also be "Regionalisation - Early or Pre-Urban Phase," et cetera.

Some additional thoughts:

• According to you, the IVC-article is about the IVC sec, not the IVT; you suggested to start an IVT-article. I've tried to make a start for an IVT-article, but I don't think it will work; too much of a fork. And no textbook or monograph treats the IVC proper in isolation from the broader tradition.
• Previously, I suggested to mention the IVT in the IVC-article, which is now the case. The IVC-article also contains links to articles on the Early Harappan and Late Harappan, c.q. Regionalisation Era and Localisaton Era cultures, so those periods are reasonably covered, without becoming too large; no need to broaden them substantially, unless maybe for some additional links to sites/phases.
• Given the usage of the Tradition terminology in multiple sources, the lack of preference for the Early Harappan terminology, and the usage of combination of terms in multiple sources, it also makes sense to use this combined terminology in the headings, and mention the Tradition-terminology in the lead.
• It seems to me that it is a good compromise, to keep the bulk of this article to be on the IVC proper, but also keep the references to Shaffer's IVT.
• We could engage other editors for the question of the terminology, as you already did at the notice-board. Maybe we can have an RfC on this? Not to have an extended fight on who's "right," but simply to have more input from other editors, and to weight the arguments. Criterium could be the use in relevant sources, and the arguments they provide for their preference; but I'm also interested in "esthetical" arguments (which terminology 'sounds better'?) and personal preferences (which terminology 'feels better'?).

How about these two options - main focus on IVC proper, with references to Shaffer's IVT, and combined terminology; and a RfC on the question which terminology is to be preferred?

Thank you for your critical remarks, and the bulk of literature; it helps me a lot to learn more. It may not be your intention to be a teacher, but in this regard, you are, so thank you. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:31, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I've added additional info on the Pre-Urban etc. terminology, and on Possehl's "Indus Age," so at least all four terminologies are being mentioned now. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:45, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I've been thinking further about the introduction of Shaffer's terminology in the lead. The following proposal is a little bit more general:

"The broader Indus Valley Tradition starts with Neolithic local agricultural villages, from where the river plains were populated. The Early Harappan culture developed from these local villages, culminating in the Indus Valley Civilisation proper, where-after urban centers declined and settlements became more locally oriented. Older periodisations refer to this proces of urbanisation and de-urbanisation as Early Harappan, Harrapan, and Late Harappan, primarily based on Harappa and Mohenjo-daro and omitting the early agricultural villages. More recent periodisations take this broader developmental sequence into account, using terminology like the Early Food Producing, Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation Era, or Early Food Producing, pre-Urban, Urban and post-Urban Period, corresponding roughly with the pre-Harappan, Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:34, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Awaiting further responses, I've removed Shaffer's name from the lead, added the Urban-terminology, for more balance in the presentation of the various periodisation-systems, and shortened it a little bit. See also Blazearon21s response above at the Talk:Indus Valley Civilisation#8000 year old claim section. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:30, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what "encyclopediacity" is about. If reliable sources are not using a term, or a set of terms, by a majority that constitutes an order of magnitude or more, i.e. ten to one or more, an encyclopedia cannot give that term, or those terms, pride of place, especially in a lead summary. If you do a binary search on Google books among scholarly publishers you will find that "Mature Harappa" etc. is used between ten and twenty times as often as "integration era" etc. Those terms cannot go into the lead. Period.

Among all books published during the last 25 years, there are 4,090 that use the old periodization "early Harappa," "early Harappan," "Mature Harappa," etc. In contrast, there are 354 which use Shaffer's periodization ("Localization era" "integration era," etc.). (Note there are repetitions in these links, so the actual number is lower, but usually by the same factor in all searches. But you get the point, the margins for the old periodization are more than ten to one)

Among books published by university presses in the last 25 years: There are 21 that use the traditional periodization with the words "Indus civilization" OR "Indus Valley"; there is only two that use Shaffer's periodization with "Indus civilization" or "Indus valley"

Among encyclopedias published in the last 25 years, there is not a single one that uses Shaffer's terminology with "Indus" (see here); well, there are two, but they are not about IVC: one is about industrial pollutants, and the other about Kashmir; in contrast, there are 15 that use the old periodization along with the word "Indus" (see here)

Finally, among Google Scholar listings, published in the last 25 years, there are 1,340 articles that use the old periodization, whereas only 122 that use Shaffer's. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

The fact that many sources use outdated terminology, is not a reason for Wikipedia to do the same, is it? You gave me a list of sources, which I surveyed to see what terminology they use. It turned out that several periodisations are being used, that the Early Harappan etc. terminology is outdated, and that many sources combine terminology from various periodisations. Now you come up with a Google-count; we do not establish significance by simply counting the majority-use among Google-hits, do we? But maybe you've got a policy for " If reliable sources are not using a term, or a set of terms, by a majority that constitutes an order of magnitude or more, i.e. ten to one or more, an encyclopedia cannot give that term, or those terms, pride of place, especially in a lead summary"? Apart from that: your search-terms apparantly don't work proper; where is "Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE, Cambridge University Press", in this search?

Anyway, WP:DUE says (emphasis mine):

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."

Maybe you can explain why Shaffer and Kenoyer, who seem to be respected authors in their field, are not significant, and why outdated terminology is to be preferred?

By the way, this sentence stood in the wiki-article since at least 10 january 2007. :

"Two terms are employed for the periodisation of the IVC: Phases and Eras."

It first appeared with this edit at 5 april 2006 by Rayfield, who added a table with the Era-terminology. What's eery, he also added the following sentence:

"Another older nomenclature classifies the Indus Valley Civilization into Early, Mature and Late Harappan. According to Erdosy, the Indus Valley Tradition nomenclature "is much more informative than the tradtional Early/Mature/Late Harappan classification which should now be discarded." ^[1]"

Ironically, the two terms "Early Food Producing Era" and "Regionalization Era" were also being used at that time as subheaders. It was Dbachmann who skipped the Era-terminology from the headers at 23 june 2006, apparently calling them "some redundancies" and leaving the outdated terminology behind.

What's also ironic is that those two sources do not simply say that "two terms are employed"; they say that multiple terms are being used; that the Early Harappan terminology is outdated; and that a periodisation using broad Eras, which include several phases, is to be preferred. And that was back in the early 1990's; I guess that the Early Harappan terminology has not become less outdated since then.

Anyway, the lead now says "Regionalization Era or pre-Urban Period", while the Early Harappan termonology is also being used trhoughout the article, reflecting various periodisations from various authors. Other combinations are also possible, of course. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Are you reading what I have written? Shaffer's periodization is 25 years old. I have done binary searches in (a) all books published in the last 25 years (ii) all books published by university presses (academic publishers) in the last 25 years, (c) encyclopedias published in the last 25 years, and (d) all journal articles listed in Google scholar in the last 25 years. These, in each category, use traditional periodization (early Harappa(n), Mature Harappa(n), Late Harappa(n)) over Shaffer's periodization ("regionalization" etc) by more than ten to one. I am not saying Shaffer's periodization cannot be mentioned in the article. I have said several times, it can be included in the periodization section. However, when the numbers are that lop-sided, Shafer's periodization cannot be used in the lead, even as a supplemental mention to the traditional. You can't hold up one book published in 2015 (Coninghham and Young) and use that as the model for nomenclature in an encyclopedia. I will shortly be removing Shaffer's periodization from the lead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

References

Mass-reverts

I asked you for a policy; where is it? I responded to your demand to go through a list of sources provided by you, which you apparently deem to be reliable, and which appear to show that the Early Harappan termonology is outdated, as argued also by other reliable sources, including sources which have been in the Wiki-article for ten years. That's not one source; don't misrepresent the discussion or the arguments.
You've been using two arguments so far: it's been in the article for so long, so it shouldn't be changed; and everybody's using it, so we should too. Those are no arguments.
And if you don't like the use of this more up-to-date terminology, then you should remove that terminology from the lead, with proper arguments, and not mass-revert all my other edits as well. You talk about the basics of Wiki-editing; you're showing an astonishing lack of comprehension of these basics. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:21, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

As a compromise, I've re-inserted the Harappan-terminology. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:38, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not here to find compromises or strike deals with you. It is Wikipedia policy, that I've referred to a few times. It is WP:UNDUE. It says specifically, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. ... Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements."

When after 25 years a term is being used by less than one in ten sources, in various categories (text-books and monographs, encyclopedia articles, and journal articles), it remains minority usage, and mentioning it in the lead along with terms that are being more commonly used, is undue weight. You can search in the last ten years, and the preference for traditional terminology in reliable sources is still lop-sided. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:57, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Okay, removing for the moment, because of "widely supported aspects" and "prominence of placement." @Doug Weller, Regentspark, and Kautilya3: could you give your opinions too? Thanks. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

regentspark re-pinging. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:07, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Here is an example of a text-book, A history of ancient and early-medieval India, by Upinder Singh, Professor of History, University of Delhi, published by Pearson's. Of the 50 pages devoted to IVC, and another 40 to Neolithic and Chalcolithic, here is what it says about Shaffer's periodization:

The Harappan culture was actually a long and complex cultural process consisting of at least three phases-the early Harappan, mature Harappan, and late Harappan. The early Harappan phase was the formative. proto-urban phase of the culture. The mature Harappan phase was the urban phase. the lull-fledged stage of civilization. The late Harappan phase was the post-urban phase, when the cities declined. Other terminology is also used. For instance, Jim Shaffer (1992) uses the term ‘lndus valley tradition” for the long series of human adaptations starting from the neolithic-chalcolithic stage to the decline of the Harappan civilization. Within this larger sequence, he uses the term 'regionalization era’ for the early Harappan phase, “integration era" for the mature Harappan phase, and "localization era” for the late Harappan phase. The early Harappan-mature Harappan transition and the mature Harappan-late Harappan transition are also treated as separate, distinct phases. In this book, the simple and straightforward terminology of early Harappan, mature Harappan. and late Harappan will be used. When the unqualified term Harappan culture/civilization is mentioned, the reference is to the urban phase.

The last two sentences capture I believe the overwhelming usage in the literature. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:31, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi JJ, I think the time for bold edits is past. Since it is clear that there is serious disagreement, I think you have to reach consensus here first, or at some dispute resolution venue.

On the issue of periodisation, I side with you. Fowler's Google Books filters didn't quite work for me. By looking at all the results and sorting them by date, I found that there are 20-30 University Press sources (in the last 25 years) that use the "X Harappan" terminology and about 10 University Press sources that use the Era terminology. So, I think the Era terminology is by no means fringe. It is fine to include it. I also agree with you (as stated below) that the new terminology is focusing on processes whereas the old terminology is more about artifacts. And that leads to better insight.

Fowler has very high standards, which I respect, but I don't buy the position that Wikipedia has to be conservative. To give one example, there are hundreds of sources that say that Mahmud of Ghazni demolished the Somnath temple, and there are myriads of legends about it. But Romila Thapar has done a detailed study which shows that he did not. We say that he did not. One good source is enough to demolish hundreds. Not conservative at all. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Kautilya3, please don't make up nonsense.

The conventional story about the Somnath temple is that Mahmud of Ghazni raided it and destroyed the Shiva idol in the temple, that during the two decades of raiding the Indian plains, he carried back much wealth, and further that the temple was reconstructed fairly quickly.

• Here is the Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume 2, page 352, Oxford University Press, 1908, ie. published long before Romila Thapar was born: "Mahmud's last expedition (1025-7), the most fruitful in plunder and the most memorable of them all, included the taking of Somnath, the Hindu holy place on the shores of the Indian ocean, in the peninsula of Kathiawar, where immense booty was acquired." (see here) Soon, even in conventional accounts, the temple was back in business. Here is the IGI, vol 2, again, on the Rajput kingdoms: "The eleventh and twelfth centuries were the golden age of the new civilization. That civilization was founded partly on a theocracy, partly on a military despotism. The Brahmans' were divine by birth. They sometimes deigned to hold the highest offices of state, but their special business was the pursuit of literature, science, and philosophy; and the Rajput courts vied with each other in their patronage of learning. ... Commerce flourished, poets and pandits went from court to court, flowers from Kashmir and water from the Ganges are said to have been daily offered at the shrine of Somnath." (see here) What does that tell you?
• Here is Burton Stein in Stein, Burton (2010), A History of India, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 139–, ISBN 978-1-4443-2351-1 published in 2010, long after Thapar's "Somnatha" contribution: "Mahmud succeeded as sultan in 998 CE. He used his inheritance to begin a series of annual dry season campaigns deep into the Gangetic plain and Gujarat. Notoriously, he destroyed the Shiva idol at the temple of Somnath in Kathiawar, carrying off a vast treasure of gold in 1025. With this he beautified his capital ...'
• Here are Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund in Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2004), A History of India, Routledge, p. 164, ISBN 978-0-415-32920-0, "The Hindus were particularly affected by the destruction and looting of their holy places at Thaneshwar, Mathura, and Kanauj. The climax of these systematic attacks was Mahmud's attack on the famous Shiva temple at Somnath on the southern coast of Kathiawar in Gujarat. After a daring expedition across the desert Mahmud reached the temple in 1025. Chronicles report that about 50,000 Hindus lost their lives in defending the temple. Mahmud destroyed the Shiva lingam with his own hands and then is said to have returned through the desert with a booty of about 20 million gold dinars (about 6.5 tons of gold)."
• Here are Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006), India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7: "After each of his seventeen expeditions within South Asia, he would return to Ghazni before the summer rains, laden with booty including slaves, gold, elephants and jewels. Mahmud’s last campaign in 1025f26 is the one for which he is most famous. At that time he sacked the Somanatha temple, built about fifty years earlier by the western Indian king of Gujarat (see Map 2.1). This coastal area was a prosperous and wealthy one, thanks to vigorous maritime trading activities. According to a later tradition, 50,000 devotees lost their lives in trying to stop Mahmud from not only taking the temple’s considerable wealth, but also destroying the form of the Hindu god Shiva housed within it. Subsequent kings of the Gujarat region constructed a much grander and elaborate temple in place of the one that Mahmud had destroyed; this rebuilt temple was to be attacked in the thirteenth century by Muslims attempting to recnact Mahmud’s legacy. The Somanatha temple thus became a primary site for regional contestation and a marker for political control over western India."
• Here are:Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2012), A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0 "(p. xxvii)"Timeline: Raids of Mahmud of Ghazna into North India, including plunder of Mathura, Kannauj, and Somnath temples." "(p. 7)There was, to be sure, destruction of non-Muslim temples and places of worship under specific circumstances ... The most famous of such forays, perhaps, are those of Mahmud Ghaznawi (d. 1030) into Sind and Gujarat. Mahmud was drawn to the riches of India to secure booty for his cosmopolitan court in Ghazna (in contemporary Afghanistan), in a manner not unlike the raids of Indic rulers who carried away vanquished idols as symbols of their victory along with their booty."
• Here is Romila Thapar herself in Thapar, Romila (1990), A History of India, Penguin Books Limited, pp. 232–233, ISBN 978-0-14-194976-5: "Temples were depositories of vast quantities of wealth, in ash, golden images, and jewellery - the donations of the pious and these made them natural targets for a non-Hindu searching for wealth in northern India. Mahmud’s greed for gold was insatiahle. From 1010 to 1026 the invasions of Mahmud were directed to temple towns - Mathura, Thanesar, Kanauj, and finally Somnath. The concentration of wealth at Somnath was renowned, and consequently it was inevitable that Mahmud would attack it. Added to the desire for wealth was the religious motivation, iconoclasm being a meritorious activity among the more orthodox followers of the Islamic faith. The destruction at Somnath was frenzied, and its effects were to remain for many centuries in the Hindu mind and to colour its assessment of the character of Mahmud, and on occasion of Muslim rulers in general." and again
• Finally, here is Romila Thapar again in Thapar, Romila (2015), The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, Penguin Books Limited, pp. 428–429, ISBN 978-93-5214-118-0, where all but the last sentence is repeated. The last sentence is replaced with a more nuanced description, "In 1026 Mahmud raided Somnatha, desecrated the temple and broke the idol. The event is described in Turko-Persian and Arab sources, some contemporary — the authors claiming to have accompanied Mahmud — and others of later times, ... The most accurate account appears to be that of Alberuni, who stated thhat the icon was a lingam, the temple was about a hundred years old and located within a fort on the edge of the sea ... But there is no unanimity about the idol in other accounts."
• Well-known historians of India such as Burton Stein, Hermann Kulke, Dietmar Rothermund, Catherine B. Asher, Cynthia Talbot, Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf, have made the assessment that the raid did take place, and there was considerable destruction, and considerable looting of wealth. Romila Thapar's contribution was to give more nuance to the story, that the numbers (of Hindus killed or taken into slavery) in contemporaneous accounts (such as Al Beruni's) may have been exaggerated, that Shia Muslims suffered as well, not just Hindus; that many Hindus collaborated with Mahmud, and that just as many contributed for the quick reconstruction, that the raid may not have been such a trauma to the collective Hindu psyche as some later British and Indian nationalist accounts had it etc. Please don't do disservice to Joshua Jonathan by making up spurious arguments. Further, don't do disservice to Wikipedia by introducing POV in the form of synthesis into the Somnath temple article, by writing garbage such as, "Historians expect the damage to the temple to have been minimal because there are records of pilgrimages to the temple in 1038, which make no mention of any damage to the temple.(cited to Thapar's book on Somnatha, 2004) However, powerful legends with intricate detail developed in the Turko-Persian literature regarding Mahmud's raid,(cited to Thapar's book on Somnatha, 2004, ch. 3) which "electrified" the Muslim world according to scholar Meenakshi Jain.(cited to a review of Thapar's book in an Indian newspaper)" How many historians are of this view? I shall soon be adding a WP:SYN tag to the Somnath temple article as well.
• I will not honor your other spurious statement about "university press"'s with any detailed refutation. Obviously Google searches are not perfect, if someone writes "Mature Harappa" and I'm searching for "Mature Harappan," it won't show up in my search; similarly, if someone writes "era of localization" and I'm searching for "localization era," it won't show up in my search, but such searches cut both ways. Overall, they give a pretty good indication of usage. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:00, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

References

F&f: thanks for the quote; that's the kind of rationale I was waiting for. Nevertheless, the discussion on the periodisation has been treated far more comprehensive by authors like Shaffer, Kenoyer, and also Coningham & Young, than the short explanation above by Singh on the various periodisation, and his statement that he uses "the simple and straightforward terminology" (he has not explained why he uses this terminology). I'd be interested to see sources which explain why the simple terminology is to be preferred, and/or sources which criticise Shaffer'sand Kenoyer's terminology and call it outdated or irrelevant.

And yes, processes, and not just artifacts: why the sharp and sudden integration of local villages and cities? Why?!? I would also be interested in sources which argue that that kind of question is irrelevant. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:15, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

By the way: Singh's comment shows that Shaffer's approach is significant enough to mention in an introduction, and that authors need to explain why they do not use it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

The quote from Upinder Singh, who is female, is not in the introduction of the chapter. Rather, it is in section 3 (titled: "Harappan, Indus, or Sindhu-Saraswati?" page 137) in chapter 4 (titled "Harappan civilization, c. 2600–1900 CE," pages 132–181). An introduction, which this section is not, moreover, is not a summary such as one in the lead of a Wikipedia article. That is typically in the conclusion of a textbook chapter. The conclusion of Chapter 4 is one paragraph long: "The Harappan civilization was the first urban culture in South Asia. The urban phase of the Harappan culture emerged from the proto-urban early Harappan phase. Archaeological evidence reveals a great deal about this civilization-its varied subsistence base, vibrant craft traditions, and extensive trade networks-but given the non-decipherment of the script. conclusions about many other aspects such as religion, society, and polity remain speculative. There was cultural homogeneity as well as diversity within the vast Harappan culture zone. Some of the neolithic. neolithic-chalcolithic. and chalcolithic sites mentioned in Chapter 3 were roughly contemporaneous with the Harappan civilization and interacted with it. The Harappan civilization did not come to a sudden end. The urban phase was followed by the late Harappan phase, which was marked by the decline of urban features and the diversification of agriculture, (p. 181)"

I am not here to discuss motivations of authors. Authors don't need to explain everything about the methodology they use. There is no Wikipedia rule or guideline, which in any case would rule out paying much attention to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, or for that matter to much of early Indian mathematics (see my Indian_mathematics#The_Sutra_genre) in which ellipses is used to the limits of natural language. It is very simple: when reliable sources are using a periodization by margins of ten to one; other periodizations, which constitute minority usage, cannot be given equal weight on Wikipedia; in particular, they cannot be included in a summary style lead, which barely mentions the traditional periodization. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:46, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I still would like to see the Wiki-policy which says that we use Google-counts to establish significance. See also Wikipedia:Google searches and numbers. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm very familiar with the problems of using Google searches. But how else do we know how to use it "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."? Or use WP:COMMONNAME as another example? Doug Weller talk 12:06, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

By weighting the sources, and the prominence of the authors, in accordance with our policies. The only serious argument I can think of for sticking to the Harappan terminology is a pragmatic one, namely that this is what most readers are already familiair with, and will be easy to grasp, and makes the article more accessible for most readers. The argument for a more inclusive terminology, apart from the significance of the authors, is exactly that: it's more inclusive, and raises relevant questions about continuity and change. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I have already proposed to you that if you want to write an article on the Indus Valley tradition, and turn into into an "Alice in Wonderland" story made up during endless summer afternoons boating on the river Thames in parishes around Oxford, please be my guest. This, however, is a Wikipedia article on the Indus Valley civilization, which has always focused on the mature- or urban phase of the culture. I don't think you understand, that the problem is not just the inclusion in the lead and section headings of the other periodizations, but also undue, or expansive, mention in the lead of the traditional periodization. The lead of the article before you made your recent contributions had scant mention of the periodization (see here) The lead now is a long paean to periodization (see here).

What Doug Weller has quoted above, speaks to the "prominence of each viewpoint", not the "prominence of the authors," of your recasting. The latter in fact would be very easy to implement. As Kautilya3 has already observed, Romila Thapar, who recently won America's Nobel prize, is worth a hundred others of lesser prominence. However, she seems to prefer traditional periodization. See: Thapar, Romila (2000), Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-564050-2 where she says, "Uniformity is recognisable only in the Mature phase of the Harappan culture, which would broadly date to the second half of the third millennium BC. (page 339)" Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:54, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I've asked you before to stop with personal attacks, and respect basic Wiki-policies on cooperation and civility. The Alice-comment is not civil, no matter how eloquently you've formulated it.

This Wiki-article has, almost from the beginning, included the developments preceeding and following the mature phase, just like every decent book and text on the IVC. So, it makes sense to include them in the article. The lead summarizes the article, which has sections on each period; so, it also makes perfect sense to summarize them in the lead.

Regarding Thapar: you came up with a list of respectable sources; stick to that list, and acknowledge that they're all critical of this outdated periodisation. You don't; you switch from 'you have to discuss your edits first' to 'see what those sources say' to 'according to my Google-count' (I'm still waiting for that policy on using Google-counts) to yet another author which fits your preferences (when it suits you; when it was about this temple nothing was good; now that she suits your preferences you suddenly mention her being a Noble-price winner. Do you notice the odd discrepancy?). And Shaffer and Kenoyer are not of "lesser prominence," are they? Though, in addition to your observation on Thapar, Kenoyer too keeps using the Harappan terminology, together with the Era-terminology. So, it's not a matter of skipping completely the older terminology, but a matter of explaining that this terminology is problematic, and that there is more about the IVC than the mature phase and its material culture.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:48, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Most common usage

I apologize for what you see as uncivil. However, I would recommend that you read WP:Beyond civility. Incivility sometimes is the last resort, when someone is violating the spirit of Wikipedia relentlessly, even if they are facilely honoring the letter, by posting a opaque narrative of intention on the talk page. How are you violating the spirit? You are doing so by selective paraphrasing, by not seeing the forest of a citation for the trees of your point of view. For example in the chronology section have you acknowledged anywhere that Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan is the commonly employed tripartite division, which many of your own citations are plainly saying even as they are criticizing it? Let us look at just two sentences. You say:

Several periodisations are employed for the periodisation of the IVC.(cited to Kenoyer; Coningham and Young) Older nomenclature, by archaeologuists like Mortimer Wheeler, classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase.(cited to a paper by Manuel in a felicitation volume) This classification is primarily based on Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, assuming an evolutionary sequence.(cited again to the same paper of Manual)

That sounds like a dismissal of the "older nomenclature." What exactly are these sources saying? Coningham and Young say:

"As noted previously, many of the pioneering archaeologists and antiquarians to work within South Asia brought with them existing systems from elsewhere, such as the Three Age System. Additionally, archaeologists have often adopted the application of a tripartite division to the civilisations of the world, and this includes the Indus. In the mid-twentieth century, Wheeler divided the Indus Civilisation into three main periods: the Early, the Mature, and the Late Indus. The highly influential British archaeologists Raymond and Bridget Allchin used similar subdivisions in their work (1982), and this largely cemented the chronological nomenclature in common use (Singh 2008). We believe that the continued use of these descriptive, limited chronological terms has contributed to the restricted approaches to understanding the development and decline of the major urban-focused developments in South Asia, and we hope that by moving beyond these traditional chronologies we may begin to provide a framework to enable us to look at alternative ways of exploring and discussing key events and processes. (Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth. The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE (Cambridge World Archaeology) (p. 25). Cambridge University Press. 2015)" (Italics mine)

And Manuel says:

"Traditionally considered by the earliest excavators to be a singular and abrupt event lasting for several hundred years, most chronologies still perpetuate this concept of linear cultural development. The most widely adopted terminology - that of an Early, Mature and Late Harappan (e.g. Cork 2005, Mughal 1997) - places the Indus Valley within a tripartite evolutionary framework, of a birth a fluorescence a death of a society in a fashion familiar to the social evolutionary concepts of Elmond Service (1971). Whilst such a chronological sequence may be correct in terms of its sequential progression, and a reflection of the perceived complexity of the Indus Valley, it suggests the “mature” phase represents the apex of the society’s development, detached from the preceding and succeeding periods, which are in turn considered to be subordinate or inferior periods. The early chronologies of the Indus Valley followed this pattem, and have directly and indirectly influenced more recent chronological models." (Italics mine)

What are these references saying? They are both saying that there is a chronology in wide and common use, Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan, which they criticize and propose alternative chronologies. What do you do? After a pithy dismissal of the "old nomenclature," you spend two or three leisurely paragraphs telling us about the not-so-widely-or-commonly used alternatives. This is a direct violation of Wikipedia policy on due weight. You are engaging in selective paraphrasing to promote a certain point of view. It is easy to accuse someone of incivility. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:00, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the quotes; they're usefull. They're saying that:

• European archaeologists brought "existing systems from elsewhere, such as the Three Age System", which they applied to the IVC;
• Allchin & Allchin were highly influential, and their usage of this division "cemented" it;
• this tripartite division is deemed by more recent authors to be "limited," and contributing to "restricted approaches";
• more recent approaches by the major authors and field-workers in this field (Shaffer, Kennoyer, Possehl, Coningham) are trying to go beyond this approach.

So, yes, that's a quantitative majority which uses this "limited approach," and a highly significant "minority" which tries another, more inclusive approach. The description of this older approach can be expanded with the info you've provided above; the more recent approaches of Shaffer, Kennoyer, Possehl and Coningham are relevant developments in the field. How about this:

"Several periodisations are employed for the periodisation of the IVC. The most commonly used nomenclature classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase. It was introduced by archaeologists like Mortimer Wheeler, who "brought with them existing systems from elsewhere, such as the Three Age System," and further developed by Murgal, who "proposed the term Early Harappan to characterize the pre- or protourban phase." This classification is primarily based on Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, assuming an evolutionary sequence. According to Manuel, this division "places the Indus Valley within a tripartite evolutionary framework, of a birth a fluorescence a death of a society in a fashion familiar to the social evolutionary concepts of Elmond Service (1971)." According to Coningham and Young, it was "cemented [...] in common use" due to "the highly influential British archaeologists Raymond and Bridget Allchin [who] used similar subdivisions in their work."

More recent approaches have found this approach to be "limited" and "restricted," putting too much emphasis on the mature phase, and try to incorporate a broader time-span and local variations and differences. The Indus Civilisation was preceded by local agricultural villages, from where the river plains were populated when water-management became available, creating an integrated civilisation. This broader time range has also been called the Indus Age and the Indus Valley Tradition.

Shaffer divided this broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era," and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which correspond roughly with the Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases. These eras and phases are not evolutionary sequences, and cannot uniformly be applied to every site. An equivalent terminology has been used by Gregory Possehl and Rita Wright, using the terms Early Food Produding Phase, Pre-Urban Phase, Urban Phase and Post-Urban Phase. Nevertheless, the Harappan terminology is still the most widely used terminology.

With the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures — Early Harappan and Late Harappan, respectively — the entire Indus Valley Civilisation may be taken to have lasted from the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. The broader Indus Valley Tradition, which includes the local agricultural predecessors, may have started as early as the 8th millennium BCE."

References

Notes

I hope that this is better, and helps to address some of the concerns you've raised. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:15, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I am afraid it is not. You are unable to paraphrase with accuracy and balance. I am tiring of your shenanigans. It is possible that you are unable to understand nuance in English. I am not sure, but I suspect you are continuing to push a certain POV. I am also more and more convinced that you are attempting to read sources you do not understand. It is best that you not edit this page for a while, and give me a chance to undo the damage you have done. Otherwise, please purse dispute resolution at a venue of your choosing. It is not my job to painstakingly go through deceitful paraphrasing and play "gotcha." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC) Apologies for the uncivil remarks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

You clearly don't understand WP:PERSONALATTACK, nor WP:CONCENSUS. WP:PERSONALATTACK says:

"Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor."

You are not commenting on the content above (you have also still not replied to the survey of literature you yourself provided, nor provided a policy for using Google-counts (this is the fourth time I mention it)), you are commenting on me. Regarding "is best that you not edit this page for a while", see also WP:OWN. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:17, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Please don't preach civility when you are being deceitful. The proof of the pudding is in the paraphrasing, not in the ability to quote Wikipedia rules on ownership etc. etc.

Example 2 of undue weight and selective paraphrasing. After a discussion of the chronologies of Shaffer and Kenoyer you add above:

According to Erdosy, the Indus Valley Tradition nomenclature "is much more informative than the traditional Early/Mature/Late Harappan classification which should now be discarded." (cited to Erdosy's introduction to his edited Indo-Aryans of South Asia, 1995, page 4) An equivalent terminology has been used by Gregory Possehl and Rita Wright, using the terms Early Food Produding Phase, Pre-Urban Phase, Urban Phase and Post-Urban Phase.(cited to Kenoyer, 1991; to Wright 1999; and Coningham and Young, 2015, p=27)"

What does Erdosy say on page 4: He says, "The isolation of distinct. although not unrelated processes that have been conflated in a theory of "Aryan invasions" - dispersal of languages, ethnogenesis and the emergence of a new ideology in the wake of systems collapse in Late/Post Harappan times⁹ - is a significant first step."

If the common reader is perplexed by Erdosy using the descriptor Late/Post Harappan, yet being cited for a quote about discarding it, they only need to look at footnote 9, an in which Erdosy says: "More recently characterized as the Localisation Era of the Indus Valley Tradition (Shaffer 1991; see also Shaffer and Lichtenstein in Chapter 5 of the present volume). On the whole, Shaffer's nomenclature is much more informative than the traditional Early/Mature/Late Harappan classification which should now be discarded." So, what do we have here? We have a footnote, in which as an aside an author has expressed an opinion about discarding a chronology which he himself is using. What is this if not deceitful paraphrasing, when an aside in a footnote in an article from a felicitation volume (which typically are not vetted for polemic as journal articles are) has been rendered into, "According to Erdosy, the Indus Valley Tradition nomenclature "is much more informative than the traditional Early/Mature/Late Harappan classification which should now be discarded" and chosen to be highlighted in the high-level Wikipedia article on the Indus Valley civilization, which is saying nothing about the literature on the traditional periodization beyond some token mention?

What about the next sentence? What are Coningham and Young saying on page 27? They say:

"Shaffer’s chronological framework has been successfully adapted and adopted by a number of scholars, such as Mark Kenoyer in his 1997 chapter on Early City-States in South Asia and his 1998 book Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, and by one of the present authors in his 2005 chapter on the archaeology of South Asia in Thames, and Hudson’s The Human Past. Other scholars, whilst not adopting it entirely, have developed parallel themes, and Rita Wright’s recent volume on the ancient Indus followed a similar framework with an Early Food Producing Phase, followed by a Pre-Urban Phase, an Urban Phase and a Post-Urban/ Late Harappan Period (2010: 22).It is equally important to note that not all archaeologists have, by any means, adopted Shaffer’s framework. For example, the late Greg Possehl grouped archaeological phases into a seven stage development sequence from: Beginnings of Village Farming Communities and Pastoral camps [...] Possehl's mixture of older periodisation (Mature Harappan), artefact-based descriptive classifications (Early Iron Age) and socio-economic processes (Developed Village Farming Communities) is not unique and others, such as Singh (2008), have presented similar categories which treat the Indus Valley and the Early Historic Traditions in very different ways and thus reinforce established divisions which prevent easy comparative discussion. (Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth. The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE (Cambridge World Archaeology) (p. 27). Cambridge University Press.)"

So, your own citation is saying that Rita Wright's chronology is a "parallel theme." This has been rendered by you into "equivalent." What is worse is that Possehl, who Coningham and Young hold up as an archaeologist—by no means unique—who has not adopted Shaffer's framework, whose framework along with Upinder Singh's reinforces "established divisions which prevent easy comparative discussion." is also being easily dismissed as "equivalent." Again, you are being selective. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:17, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

What else do Coningham and Young say? In a long explanation of (and sketch of) their approach they say cautiously and carefully:

"We will adopt Shaffer’s framework in this volume in order to better understand and explore the processess which led to the two main urban-focused developments in South Asia and, in the following chapters, we first investigate ... We also begin to replace the traditional terminologies of ‘Chalcolithic’, Iron Age, Proto-Historic, Early Historic and Mauryan with those of a ‘Localisation Era’ followed by an Era of ‘Regionalisation’ and an Era of ‘Integration’. We argue that Kenoyer’s (1998) suggestion that the Era of Integration was only reached with the Mauryan period (c. 317 BCE) was overcautious and that such a cultural and economic stage became evident in the archaeological record as early as 600 BCE, ... This task is likely to be controversial and we acknowledge that not all scholars will be receptive. ... There are also a number of issues still to be refined, and it remains questionable whether there is sufficient difference and distinction between Shaffer’s definitions of Regionalisation and Localisation. Shaffer’s own definition (quoted earlier) observes the similarities of the two eras, with some differentiation in the form of contact between groups. In turn, we have retained this separation and nomenclature, although we recognise the overlap, and part of our aim in this volume is to further differentiate between the regionalisation (emerging complexity) eras and localisation (declining or contracting complexity) eras for both the Indus and Early Historic periods. ... We can also question the relevance of the term Integration to refer to the period of Indus urban development as large swathes of northern and southern South Asia were unaffected by what was, on a subcontinental scale, a regional feature."

Your own cited authors are pointing out issues in Shaffer's periodization which you glossing over. If you are going to blow up a footnote of Manuel, you should be able to discuss disagreements and criticisms of Shaffer. What else do Coningham and Young say? They say,

Some of the works that have explored either the Indus or the Early Historic urban and rural sequences have provided innovative approaches for the analysis of those complex societies, for example Shaffer’s (1992) concept of an ‘Indus Valley Tradition’ to which we return later. However, most have focused on either one tradition or the other, thus continuing the long-standing division between the Indus and Early Historic, for example Wright (2010), Sengupta and Chakraborty( 2008), McIntosh (2002) and Kenoyer (1998). This division can be broadly traced back to the later years of European colonial influence in South Asia and the impact of individuals such as Mortimer Wheeler (1950), Gordon Childe (1934) and Stuart Piggott (1950) with their claims that a distinct cultural, linguistic and social transformation lay between the Indus Civilisation and the Early Historic. This is not to suggest that this was purely a colonial concept as a number of post-Independence South Asian scholars also adopted and adapted it, including Dani (1967), Banerjee (1965) and Lal (1955). Furthermore, some scholars have viewed the Indus through a prism influenced by the archaeology of Mesopotamia, such as Wright 2010."

How are you dismissing this? You say, "So, yes, that's a quantitative majority which uses this "limited approach," and a highly significant "minority" which tries another, more inclusive approach. The description of this older approach can be expanded with the info you've provided above; the more recent approaches of Shaffer, Kennoyer, Possehl and Coningham are relevant developments in the field.

Seriously, please tell me what am I to do with such selective paraphrasing? Seriously.

This is the problem with using complex, recent, scholarship, which makes points too recondite for an encyclopedia. That is why I am encouraging you to avoid using very recent scholarship, and that is what I meant when I said rudely, "I am also more and more convinced that you are attempting to read sources you do not understand." If you can't paraphrase it with balance and some accuracy, you don't really understand it. I apologize for my tone, but you have to understand that you are doing this across a range of ancient South Asia-related articles, and how much time do you expect me to spend in pointing out issues? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:10, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your extensive reply; I appreciate that. What triggered me most was your initial response: simply mass-reverting every edit I made, without any further explanation. What set me out to read more, and making this series of edits, is the simple question how the Early Harappan and the Regionalisation Era relate to each other, and if the Regionalisation era starts at the same time as the Early Harappan. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 01:24, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Partial self-revert

I've partly self-reverted the lead to this version by F&f, in response to F&f's reply above, but retained this sentence:

" The early Harappan cultures were preceded by local Neolithic agricultural villages, from where the river plains were populated."

I've done so because it is simply correct and informative, but also because of this recurrent discussion on recent finds which are interpreted as being the oldest IVC-site. This piece of info makes clear, in one sentence, that the IVC proper is different from these very early sites. This partial self-revert also retains the change of some in proper, named notes, which are usefull and informative, and are duplicated in the body of the article, thanks to them being named now. The text of those notes is not in the lead anymore, but in the body of the article. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 01:43, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

I've also partly self-reverted the chronology-section, but changed:

"Two terms are employed for the periodisation of the IVC: Phases and Eras. The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases are also called the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras. The Regionalization started with trade between local villages and regions, which had a unifying effect resulting in "a full-fledged 'civilisation.'" "

into

"Several periodisations are employed for the periodisation of the IVC.[16][42] The most commonly used classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase.[43] An alternative approach by Shaffer divides the broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era," and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which correspond roughly with the Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases.[44][45]"

The table contains dates for the start of the Regionalisation Era, which show that it is stated to start earlier than c.3300 BCE.

I have also retained the order of "Geography" - "Discovery"- "Chronology", since this is more or less the order in the lead. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 02:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not attached to my version. Indeed I had not paid much attention to the periodization section. I will suggest some text here for it which, hopefully, will capture the motivations and meanings of the various terms being used. But this may take time, as I have explained above, I am traveling, and short on time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:56, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks. Additional suggestions would be most welcome; the theoretical concerns regarding the limitations of specific periodisations, and regarding continuity and change, are an interesting topic, which open new perspectives and understandings. What Coningham & Young "cautiously and carefully" say about their approach is about the longer time-span of the IVC + Iron Age, which they try to combine in their approach; it's an interesting approach. I hope your further travel will be pleasurable, and not hindered by my disturbances. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:58, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

PS, after re-reading: you're right that "An equivalent terminology has been used by Gregory Possehl" was incorrect. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:17, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

RFC about South Asia vs. Indian Subcontinent

There is a clear consensus against the proposal. Cunard (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the intro be changed to the following: The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilisation (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) mainly in the northwestern regions of the Indian Subcontinent, primarily centred in Pakistan and Northwest India extending into Northeast Afghanistan.

The reason for my proposal is the following:

1. South Asia is an ill defined geography. It changes from one scholarship/organization to another.
2. Indian subcontinent is more of a defined geography.
3. Plus, in a history page Indian subcontinent i.e. "Ancient India" or in a "equivalent name" (Al-Hind, Hindustan, etc.) as a historical geography existed throughout history as articulated by this reference from The Diplomat.

References

(Note: If I made a mistake in the RFC, please fix it. I am new to this.) 2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 18:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose - The terminology was changed by Fowler&fowler in this edit. I don't see anything having changed. The California Board of Education thought the use of "India" during the historical period was reasonable. But this is prehistory, when there was no Sindh, Hind, Indus, or India. I would call it the Meluhhan subcontinent if I had a choice, but I don't. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose' - "South Asia" is more neutral. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: what do you mean by neutral? (2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 21:48, 12 January 2017 (UTC))

Are you serious? IVC was mainly centered in present-day Pakistan; to use the term "Indian subcontinent," while there was no India at the time, is obviously not neutral. To avoid nationalistic side-picking, "south Asia" is more suitable. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Most books I have read give weight to both Northwest India and Pakistan. 2/5 largest IVC cities are in India; also the largest IVC city is Rakhigarhi, the oldest IVC is now in India (Bhirrana), and the late Harappan period in mostly in present day India. Would like to see current scholarship that gives most/full weight of the IVC to Pakistan [if you have it, please share]. (70.192.64.113 (talk) 05:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC))

• Oppose - 'South Asia' is more neutral geographical term and should be used. The 'Indian Subcontinent' is a political term and opposed by some countries in the region. RedPlanet321 (talk) 03:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@RedPlanet321: read the reference and what User:Kautilya3 wrote. Indian subcontinent is a historical term (since Reg Veda), not political. IVC is pre-history, the reason for the opposition. Which is accurate. (2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 03:30, 13 January 2017 (UTC))

• Either is fine, and it is not worth arguing about. Ancient India remains a thoroughly current term, covering all the relevant areas for this article. Johnbod (talk) 05:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose The OED defines "Indian subcontinent n." as "the part of Asia south of the Himalayas which forms a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, now divided between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. " and in fine print, "Also used with wider application to include Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. The term is roughly equivalent to South Asia, esp. in the wider use, although Indian subcontinent is sometimes considered to be more of a geophysical description, and South Asia more geopolitical. Had they thought it was all of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, they would have said, "now comprising India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh." The Indian Subcontinent, in my view, is an older term for the Indian tectonic plate, from around the days of the Continental Drift theory in the early 1900s. That's why Sri Lanka and Maldives end up being on it. But, to my knowledge also, Balochistan, especially the western region, which lies on the Iranian plateau is not on the Indian subcontinent. It is not on the Indian plate; nor was it a part of India, in any old conception or notion of the word, until the British annexed parts of it, and indirectly began to rule the others, such as Kalat, after the 1870s. But it has some of the most important sites of IVC. Similarly Shortugai, in Afghanistan, is not on the Indian subcontinent (see IVC map). These are all in South Asia, however.

If you want to avoid both terms, here is my suggestion: The important IVC sites are all in Pakistan (though Indian government archaeologists, after 1947, have been typically exaggerating the number of IVC sites in India, or making tall claims for them, such as Lothal has a harbor and dock, or Bhirrana is the latest and greatest, and not to mention oldest, which no one outside India believes). If we want to be minimalist, we can always change the lead sentence to: "The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilisation (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) primarily centered in what today is Pakistan and extending into what today are Western India, Northwest India, and Northeast Afghanistan." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:55, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: I want to start by saying I am not opposed to South Asia. However, you clearly pushing your own view.

1. Baluchistan has been culturally and politically part of the Indian subcontinent from the time of the Mauryan, native Sewa Dynasty to the Mughals in the early modern period. This is a digression, not the point we are discussing.
2. You have the right to question ASI, however, they are a creditable organization. And I see you conveniently left out Dholavira and Rakhigarhi (which are the 2/5 largest IVC). Again, your point is moot, unless you find a peer reviewed reference. All you have stated had no reference to back up your claim; and question the authenticity of ASI - again, need source.
3. Late Harrappan period is mainly in present day India.
4. Shortugai is a trading colony. Not part of core IVC. If you have a reference that states it as a core IVC, please share.
5. Lastly, this is not about changing the existing sentence, but about Indian subcontinent vs. South Asia. The current version is acceptable to most, by changing it you will open more unnecessary debates. (2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC))

1. Please read the India page, which says in its history section: "The (Mauryan) empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent excepting the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas."[52][53] (cited to Burton Stein's History of India and Kulke and Rothermund's A History of India. There are no Asokan pillars, no inscriptions, no Lion Capital of Kalat in Balochistan.

2. ASI is a famous organization with a spectacular history. I have myself created a page of an ASI epigraphist: G. S. Gai, who in turn inspired me to create the pages, Kappe Arabhatta, Tripadi, and A. N. Narasimhia without knowing a word of the Indian vernacular languages in which the inscription was composed. However the IVC division has been plagued with issues since after independence. They have typically not allowed foreign archaeologists to excavate in India. They don't publish in internationally-recognized peer-reviewed journals. They are famous for publishing reports only. They typically exaggerate areas of their sites: For Rakhigarhi see Rakhigarhi#Area with citations. They have some excellent archaeologists, such as Bisht, but they've also had a number Hindu nationalist charlatans. Here is Possehl, Gregory L. (1979), Ancient Cities of the Indus, Carolina Academic Press, ISBN 978-0-89089-093-6 on the Lothal dock: "Several Indian and European scholars have privately expressed to me doubts about the dock interpretation. ...Reports on the Lothal excavation will be found in Indian Archaeology: A Review published by the Archaeological Survey of India ..."

3. Late Harappan (1900–1700) is not when or where the civilization flourished. A lead sentence about a civilization should, first and foremost, tell us when and where the civilization flourished, not where it dissipated, or what it dissipated into.

4 I didn't say Shortugai was a core site. But Northeastern Afghanistan is mentioned in the lead sentence, and it is not on the Indian subcontinent. How does it matter if Shortugai was founded for its lapis lazuli. It is a big site still. It has more pages devoted to it in Rita Wright's The Ancient Indus (CUP, 2012) than Rakhigarhi (which Wright is unable to discuss in any detail "in view of the limited published material." (p 109)

5. I don't have any issues with the current version, which as someone stated above, is mine. I was merely attempting to be flexible. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: again, your points can easily be refuted.

1. The Mauryans having large autonomous regions is not surprising, if it were proven to be true 100%. We know from the first millennia BCE Indian rulers started adopting the idea of Rajamandala; written in Arthashastra. This does not negate from Mauryan paramountcy. Even the British used this in their own form: princely state, where 1/3rd of India was governed by these states. Again, you conveniently left out the local Sewa Dynasty and Mughals from your rebuttal.
2. Your claims are just your own regarding the ASI's IVC division. There is little peer reviewed journal that refutes ASI and their IVC division. Your claim of IVC being guarded is not true, much of the recent finding were in multiple cases lead by South Korean and German teams. Most importantly looking at good amount of Indian academics with high suspicion by calling some of them "Hindu nationalistic charlatans" without any proof is the definition of Western superiority, bias and bigotry (If you have peer reviewed journals that claims it, please share). Even if they don't allow Americans/British, there are enough Indian acedamics of all political backgrounds in India to report accurate findings.
3. This article is about all of the history of IVC. Flourished is just a period; decline is also an important period in any civilization and its history.
4. Shortugai is a colonial trading post. It is not a core area, as both of us have stated. Example: Alexander built colonial cites of Alexandria in many parts of the world, but that does not make it a part of Greece. Just as Shortugai is not part of the Indus Valley "realm".
5. Only part we completely agree, your current version is the most appropriate for Wikipedia.
6. Please, if you disagree with any of my points, kindly let me know. Also, if you can provide the peer reviewed journals confirming your suspensions of the ASI's IVC team, please share. (2600:1001:B011:A257:D04A:86D8:6D71:1122 (talk) 00:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC))

Dear 2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk · contribs) I came here to comment in an RFC. I have commented, as have others. It is clear this RFC is going nowhere, and that there is no appetite on Wikipedia, academic archaeology, geophysics, or scholarly studies for the use of "Indian subcontinent." I have no interest in engaging an editor who appears on Wikipedia for the first time on 12 January 2017 claiming to be a newbie, and in his third edit, creates an RFC on a talk page, who then also comments in the RFC as an IP, and now as yet another new editor 2600:1001:B011:A257:D04A:86D8:6D71:1122 (talk · contribs). I wasn't born yesterday. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:58, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: 1) The RFC is clearly closed, Kautilya3's example clinches it for South Asia. 2) I never claimed to be a newbie, I only claimed to be new to RFC. 3) I knew editors like you will come up and treat IP editors like dirt, that is why I pinged Kautilya3, with whom I worked with for the last few years. (2600:1001:B011:A257:D04A:86D8:6D71:1122 (talk) 01:32, 14 January 2017 (UTC))

• Oppose. It doesn't really matter from the readers' perspective, but South Asia reflects a preference for neutral geographic terms, that don't reference modern nationalities, in contemporary archaeology. – Joe (talk) 09:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Joe Roe:, Please accept my admiration for a clear, concise, and perspicuous statement. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:41, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Comments

• Comment: @Kautilya3: will appreciate your input on this. (2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 18:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC))
• Comment Is an RfC appropriate? I see no discussion on this issue. --regentspark (comment) 20:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Reply: Hello, if you look at the edit history of this page. There has been ongoing back and forth between people changing it to Indian subcontinent to South Asia and vice versa since 2015. Since it is leaning South Asia, it will solve this dispute once and for all. (2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 21:44, 12 January 2017 (UTC))

It is a lot older than 2015. I've been watching it since 2006. Here is my take: India, sadly for Indians, was left with nothing in terms of IVC sites after the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947. Editors with a solidly caricaturable Indian POV are miffed that Pakistan has something older, which doesn't sit well with their conviction that Indian culture is older than time. Editors with a solidly caricaturable Pakistan POV, don't care about much about antiquity, because pre-Islamic history is not history, but they are allergic to the words "India" and "Indians" when applied to parts of Pakistan. This in essence is the reason for the culture wars on this page. That said, Indian subcontinent is no longer being used much in academic circles. All major universities now have South Asia departments, not Indian studies departments. South Asia is increasingly the term of choice even in geophysics journals. Also, people outside the British Commonwealth are often unaware of the term "Indian subcontinent" (not that they particularly know what South Asia is either, but at least the know what "Asia" and "South" are individually.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:33, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: I responded to you above. (2600:1001:B011:A257:C16C:C053:7DD9:38B3 (talk) 06:42, 13 January 2017 (UTC))

Comment: I think this RFC is clearly closed. Moving forward we need to make sure South Asia stays. (2600:1001:B011:A257:D04A:86D8:6D71:1122 (talk) 01:27, 14 January 2017 (UTC))

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The script a language?

The progress in deciphering the IVC symbols.Does it constitute a full fledged language? Divyashyam (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

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Chronology

In the table with the chronology, I've split (copied from Periodisation of the Indus Valley Civilisation) the phases-column into three separate columns, for Mehrgarh, Harappan, and Other respectively, to make clearer that Mehrgarh and Harappan are related, but not the same. This with the repeated "discussions" about the supposed older datings of Harappan culture, which is actually about Mehrgarh. NB: it could also be argued that the combined column is a piece of WP:SYNTHESIS. Anyway, I hope this helps a little bit. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:17, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism By Indian IP Hopper

This IP hopper is creating a nuisance on all Wikipedia articles related to Pakistan. Look at the latest set of edits where he's simply deleting things and replacing it with "bla bla" and "boi" and this user has a history with it. Look here and what it did with Qaumi Tarana [2] where "Music" was replaced with "im gay". Is this the level of expertise we're tolerating at Wikipedia?

I have been working hard for the past few days in resurrecting the History of Pakistan wiki article, which was a complete mess. What I would like to highlight is that the person making these false accusations is him or herself guilty of using several fake user IDs: User talk:2600:1001:B022:9456:78B8:AE85:6CBD:C2A, User talk:2600:1001:B00F:C83A:B021:8FCE:3046:6FB6, User talk:2600:1001:B129:1728:EC19:6226:642B:1B69,User:2600:1017:b429:564c:9d19:4c33:46ce:2581 (This was blocked). All 4 ID's are making the same edits and has a history of wanting to add "Indian Subcontinent" (an obsolete term) into all articles related to South Asia. Kindly consider investigating this Wiki user. Thank you and have a nice day. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:08, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

when did bronze-age really start?

Could someone knowledgeable add some information (objects, datings, sites) about when bronze-objects appeared to a really substantial degree - forming say at least 25 % of tools, weapons, art- and cult-objects, so one can justifiably talk of an end of the chalcolithic (including erratic bronze objects, mostly of natural or untypical alloys, towards the end)?! Thanx! --HilmarHansWerner (talk) 00:18, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Late Harappan, "Continuity" subsection

It refers to urban settlements in the Gangetic plain beginning as early 1200 BCE, which looked obviously wrong to me, and contradicts every other source I've seen... But the Science article by Andrew Lawler actually does say the following: "Excavations along the Gangetic plain show that cities began to arise there starting about 1200 B.C.E., just a few centuries after Harappa was deserted and much ear- lier than once suspected. That means that some con- tinuity between the first and second wave of Indian civilization is conceivable, says Possehl." But he doesn't name specific settlements or published reports. Does anyone know what he's talking about, specifically? Avantiputra7 (talk) 05:53, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Interesting article; thanks for raising the question. It also answers a question from me:

Did the Indus directly seed what eventually grew into the second wave of Indian civilization? That is a hot political as well as scholarly topic. “This plays a significant role in today’s India,” says Possehl. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which ruled India from 1998 to 2004, declared the Indus to be the progenitor of Hindu civilization, a controversial claim in a country with a large Muslim population.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:32, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 October 2017

change "civilisation" to be spelled correctly !!!!!THIS SHOULD BE CHANGED ON MULTIPLE PAGES!!!!! Bam.zander (talk) 22:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: @Bam.zander: See WP:ENGVAR. There is more than one variety of English in use in this encyclopedia. RudolfRed (talk) 00:42, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

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Merhgarh dates

I think we should use what seems to be the latest source. "The earliest occupation of Mehrgarh in Period 1 was found in mound MR3 and has been dated to between 6500 and 5500 BCE."[3] p.111 Doug Weller talk 12:51, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Forthcoming research on who built the IVC

See this. It involves a DNA study of 4 skeletons from Rakhigarhi and will be published in a few weeks. Doug Weller talk 20:59, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

New IP edits, bad sources

We might want to revert it all if this is typical: Subhrashis Adhikari, 2016, The Journey of Survivors: 70,000-Year History of Indian Sub-Continent, section 2.1. a b Om Gupta, 2006, Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Page 1042. a b c Gupta 1995, p. 183, "More than 500 Harappan sites have been discovered along the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries (higher than Indus river)." The first book is self-published by " a history enthusiast. He travels all around India, unraveling her glorious past, with his wife and little daughter as a companion. After completing his MTech from IIT Bombay, he now works as a geologist in a multinational oil and gas exploration and production company." The Encyclopedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh plagiarises our articles. Wikipedia:Potentially unreliable sources#Wikipedia mirrors. In a rush, those are the first I looked at. Doug Weller talk 18:03, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

I've gor the impression that those edits are biased. "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" in the lead is odd. Google: "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" ca. 2,310 hits; "Indus-Valley civilisation" ca. 369,000 hits; "Harappan Civilisation" ca. 176,000 hits. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:00, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

This text is clearly biased, WP:UNDUE, not WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS (emphasis mine):

The Indus Valley Civilisation is also called the "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilisation", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation", as it is theorized that the civilisation flourished on banks of the Sarasvati river, along with the Indus. The largest concentration of sites is based around the Ghaggar-Hakra river which is identified with Saraswati river by scholars. Of 1,022 sites discovered so far, 616 are in India (along Ghaggar-Hakra river) and 406 are in Pakistan (along Indus river), it is obviously objectionable to name it Indus Valley Civilisation. Hence, scholars describe the term "Saraswati Civilisation" as the lost civilisation. Numerous scholars prefer the term "Indus-Saraswati Valley Civilization". Proponent of "Harappan Civilisation" name, suggest so following the archaeological norm of naming a civilisation after its first findspot.

References

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:09, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

"Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilisation" is also bogus. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:39, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

I just saw this message. These are my edits. I intend to help improve the article. I come with an open mind and do not mean to make mess. Instead of one big edit, I have deliberately made the multiple iterative gradual edits. That way other editors can review my edits one by one, as well better understand the development of the logic. Please delete the sources or content that you think are not good enough. Please explain your rationale here so I can understand what is going on (simple and direct way, without too much wikipedia jargon). Before deleting please let other more experienced editors of this article comment to ensure all the aspects are covered. They might be more apt than me in defending and presenting the counter argument. Feel free to agree with me on one point and then disagree on the next one, i.e. issue-based discussion on the merit of the edit, nothing personal. I do not have any past friends or enemies on this talk page here, all strangers. I assume everyone wants to help me and each other. Though some of the past discussion above among others seems dauntingly aggressive and heavy. You can review my talkpage to see my past work and to see I have peacefully stayed out of arguments and troubles. That is why I did not want to comment here to retain peace of my mind, but I am still taking the risk of venturing in to this talk page.

Please try to consider the specific points with an open mind. Do not presume bias, I am trying to introduce the balance. I am presuming no one else is deliberately trying to stonewall either. I will sincerely try to answer everyone's questions. Feel free to offer me help/advice/guidance that you think I need (but might not even be aware that I need it):

• A. Apply uniform standard: Apply the same level of rigor and leniency that you have applied to your own edits and the current content on the article. Prior to my edits, Nath and Gupta already existed as acceptable sources in this article in edits done by others (in last para of "Extent").

• A1. Why it has suddenly come objectionable now after my edits?
• A2. Why was it not objectionable source before when it supported the view opposite to mine?
• A3. Are some of these sources being objected to of lower quality than the preexisting sources?
• A4.About the synthesis, I only constructively captured the "missing full essence" (omission and commission) of the existing sources that existed before my edits, and I also introduced some new sources. About omission and commission, I noticed some previous edits I fixed were cherry pickings e.g. take pro-pakistan POV and represent it in dubious manner, e.g. phrasing as if Pakistan and Indus are more flourishing sites while sorue does not really say so, I am righting the wrongs. mass tagging it with POV, bias, UNDUE, would be in badfaith. Please be careful to avoid going overboard. Give me constructive and fair feedback, not stonewalling.
• A5. Please review each edit one by one, check edit history, check if some of the sources I used preexisted or not. If they did, then try to not suddenly introduce summary objection to the credibility of the whole source.
• A6. Please help me and wikipedia by being consistent. Stonewalling by using inconsistent standards would also be POV/bias/etc. Please do not call something biased, if it differs from your own personal views, I am counting on other editors ability to be open and modify their opinion.

• B. Take only good: Please do not delete the whole statement for one bad source if all others are good. If a statement has multiple sources, and you deem source-A is not good enough, then remove the objectionable one but please retain the statement supported by the remaining sources. For example, Some of my text attributed to Nath and Gupta is also supported by others non-contested sources (Upinder Singh and Danilo), fish out those from my deleted/reverted edits and use those instead. No cherry picking please, be comprehensive. If you take "all my edits in entirety", including my deleted/reverted edits, you will find some of the text being contested now is supported by the preexisting sources.

• C. Extent section - last para - Shereen Ratnagar - get page# or please delete her passage:

• C1. That source has no link to online version and there is no page number. This makes it unacceptable. Please ask the original editors to supply it, or else remove the unverifiable passage.
• C2. In case if in future, the supplied info becomes verifiable, then we need to consider in what context that statement is made. e.g. newspaper says India has 2000 sites, lets say they are inflated (may be not). Singh, who is a preexisting acceptable source (existed before my edits) and she says India has 600+ and Pakistan has nearly 400 sites. So why not take Singh as credible source to refute Ratnagar's statement/doubts. Based on this logic remove the passage by Ratnagar as it is unnecessary in encyclopedia.
• C3. If Ratnagar was making the statement in a different context, then do not retain it as broad sweep statement. If Shereen Ratnagar's (who earned High Court's reprimand for lack of expertise) statement is not applicable to data supplied by Upinder Singh, then Ratnager's passage should not be retained in the article.

• D. Google hits are not credible way of measuring reliability and due balance of sources. Relying on google for due balance is dangerous, because it creates bias in favor of online sources. Second, it disadvantages sources from the non-developed nations that have low internet penetration and digitization. If a source has 2000 hits, comparatively it might have smaller hit than older views but its validity or reliability is not diminished. 2,000 as a standalone measure if credible enough, wikipedia is not voting democracy in that sense. Also, a newer but robust source with latest data/research might be more reliable and might warrant higher due balance in the article.

• E. No vague statements, give "actionable specifics": Instead of vague statements like "this looks unacceptable", better give me each specific (take note of point-A, fair and consistent, not invent new doubts on preexisting sources) so that I can take actions to fix the "real" issues.

• F. No knee-jerk rushed actions or comments please. I spent several hours in my edits, I am putting sincere effort to address every concern raised here in goodfaith. If someone is deleting hour of my edits, I deserve they spend at least 10 minutes in being thorough in checking all my edits before concluding.

Apology for the long reply. I wanted others to understand my intentions and style. I tried to address and preempt as much things I can think in advance, so that hopefully resolution is quick. You guys have been around longer than me, I am counting on your goodheart and open mind. Please take everything I said in nice sweet way. I am not accusing in my reply, I am trying to force others to have open mind to other explanation. I am sorry, if I hurt anyone. Let me know on my page in what way I hurt you and I will sincerely try to fix/avoid it. Thanks for your time. 202.156.182.84 (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your response; appreciated.

• Ad C: you mean this passage:

However, the arguments about the higher number of Ghaggar-Hakra sites are disputed by other archaeologists, who state that the Ghaggar-Hakra desert area has been left untouched by settlements and agriculture since the end of the Indus period and hence shows more sites than those found in the alluvium of the Indus Valley; second, that the number of Harappan sites along the Ghaggar-Hakra river beds has been exaggerated. (source: Ratnagar, Shereen (2006). Understanding Harappa: Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley. New Delhi: Tulika Books. ISBN 81-89487-02-7.)

Wikipedia presents an overview of relevant information; if your insistence on a higher number of IVC-sites at the GH-river is contradicted by other authors, then that makes it relevant. But indeed, the source is not accessible online. Anyway, this "mine-is-bigger-than-yours" argument is not relevant for most readers. And as a reminder: those IVC-people came from the mountains west of the Indus.

• Ad D: a Google-count is an accepted method to determinate WP:COMMONNAME. The term "Sarasvati culture" is not common, nor neutral. G Feuerstein, S Kak, D Frawley (2005), The Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India, quote "the Indus-Sarasvati civilization (8000-1900 BC)", or it's usage by Michel Danino, says enough about the context of that term. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:59, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Even where edits are incremental it can be very difficult to revert only several, it cannot always be done by clicking "undue". I often find that I haven't noticed a bad source in an article until an edit draws my attention to it. No one is responsible for all the content of an article. Doug Weller talk 14:18, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Ip edit warring at Cradle of civilisation

Am I right in my reverts there? Not at all sure about other changes either. Doug Weller talk 07:14, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

I thibnk so. Otherwise, it would be "India and Pakistan," et cetera ad inifinitum. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:04, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: No. It started with the usual agenda edit from Mfarazbaig,[4] a disruptive paid editing sock who is on verge of getting sitebanned,[5] after he changed the title of that one particular section and edit warred. Though other IP clearly assumed good faith[6] and he changed the titles of rest of the sections, though I don't find them to be appropriate and support restoring the earlier. If you look around for the sources for Cradle of Civilization, including the one provided on lead, it supports "India" and most of the section and the sources support the same. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:56, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Rakhigarhi samples

The Caravan (27 april 2018), Indus Valley people did not have genetic contribution from the steppes: Head of Ancient DNA Lab testing Rakhigarhi samples:

“It will show that there is no steppe contribution to the Indus Valley DNA,” Rai said. “The Indus Valley people were indigenous, but in the sense that their DNA had contributions from near eastern Iranian farmers mixed with the Indian hunter-gatherer DNA, that is still reflected in the DNA of the people of the Andaman islands.”

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:23, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Meluhha = Indus Valley Civilisation

Highpeaks35, you are reverting a sourced part, which states that Meluhha is identified with the Indus valley civlizaton calling it "pure speculation", although the source claims a wide agreement among experts on this subject. Your action is unwarranted. But not only that, you have created a horribly cluttered lead section, where you basically go in detail of the geographical area mentioned just a sentence before, a duplication of information. Current poitical entities have no relevance to the IVC, so it's a completely unwarranted addition. The lead section should summarize important information. Stop editing towards the opposite direction.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 21:20, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose: There is no definite proof provided regarding the IVC and Meluhha. I doubt it is widely accepted yet. However, you may put this info in a later section. I will leave it to other editors and build a consensus before putting this info back. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2018 (UTC))

I think that TTT's lead is fine. My only suggestion would ne to move the Meluhha-remark downwards:

Their trade seals, decorated with animals and mythical beings, indicate they conducted thriving trade with lands as far away as Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, where it was known as Meluhha.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:33, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think we can say "where it was known as Meluhha" since that appears to be speculative. Perhaps a more qualified statement?--regentspark (comment) 13:17, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I think the "trade seals" statement is not supported, we don't really know the purpose of the seals yet, but that there was trade is beyond any doubt.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 17:02, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

New Paper

This new paper tells about decline of IVC due to climate change. Add it at appropriate place.-Nizil (talk) 11:38, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Bhirrana

Info on Bhirrana was already contained in the chronology section, and in note 8; reading the article instead of copying from Bhirrana (without proper attribution) was not necessary...

The second part of the following sentence, after the Law-reference which itself refers also to Rao, is unsourced:

The excavation has revealed the remains of the Harappan culture right from its nascent stage, i.e., Hakra Wares Culture[67] (antedating the earliest known Harappan culture in the Indian subcontinent, also known as Kalibangan-I) to a full-fledged Mature Harappan city.

Next:

Prior to the excavation of Bhirrana, no Hakra Wares culture, predating the Early Harappan had been exposed in any Indian site. For the first time, the remains of this culture have been exposed at Bhirrana. This culture is characterised by structures in the form of subterranean dwelling pits, cut into the natural soil. The walls and floor of these pits were plastered with the yellowish alluvium of the Saraswati valley. The artefacts of this period comprised a copper bangle, a copper arrowhead, bangles of terracotta, beads of carnelian, lapis lazuli and steatite, bone point, stone saddle and quern.

References

The exact same information can be found at the site of the Archaeological Survey of India. @Diannaa: can you determine whether the Wiki-info was copied from the ASI, or whether the ASI copied Wikipedia? The same content can be found at Bhirrana. It was added there already in 2007...

Singh also refers to Rao; so, basically, all the text in this section is based on Rao. That's WP:UNDUE, for one source. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:47, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

The webpage http://excnagasi.in/excavation_bhirrana.html was never archived by the Wayback Machine so I can't say for certain whether or not we copied from them. Since we've had the material since 2007, copyvio will be almost impossible to prove. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

There is no way that ASI would copy from Wikipedia. Our editors might have copied it from ASI or some press release or a newspaper that copied it from a press release. Let us fix it and move on. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:02, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I remember what the problem was with Bhirrana in the past, at this page: the statement that the IVC dates back 9000 years, because Bhirrana dates back 9000 years. This claim has not been made this time, though Rao's claim is at completely odds with the usual dating of Hakra Ware (8th-7th millennium BCE versus 4th-3rd millennium BCE). See also WP:REDFLAG. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:54, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding Dikshit's claim that this pottery was wheel-made, see Potter's wheel#History:

Tournettes, in use around 4500 BC in the Near East, were turned slowly by hand or by foot while coiling a pot [...] In the mid to late 3rd millennium BC the fast wheel was developed, which operated on the flywheel principle.

It seems to me that this picture of Bhirrana fits into the 10,000 years of Hinduism claim... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:40, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, putting back the date of the same style of pottery by 4000 years is a pretty astonishing claim that requires rigorous scrutiny. I have been looking for any recent authors who take a critical, skeptical look at whether this carbon dating could have gone wrong, but I haven't found anything yet. Coningham and Young (2015) don't mention Bhirrana at all. Interestingly, this chapter from what looks to be a reliable book is from after the Bhirrana results came out, yet its author tacitly ignores the carbon dates and places the Bhirrana pottery in "the later part of the fourth millennium BCE" on stylistic grounds compared to everywhere else (see pp.366–367). -Avantiputra7 (talk) 06:16, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Predecessors and successors

Merhgahr: place or culture (c.q. time-period) - and followed by what?

I think Highpeaks35 is correct here, though the earliest phase of both Bhirrana and Mergarh belongs to the stone age. In that sense, they are not preceded by the stone age. But I think it's not corect to say that Bhirrana was "preceded" by Mergarh; Mervarh is a different location. And it's a place, not a time-period. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:30, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm confused with the treatment of the IVC in a timeline of ages. From a timeline perspective, Indus Valley Civilisation was happening in the Bronze Age. Mergarh is one (!) known culture which preceded the IVC culture, which could be used here. I think it should stay there like before. The "Vedic period" successor falls in the problematic timeline usage. I would say, there is no proper cultural successor in that region and we should leave it blank there.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: I strongly suggest you find a current and proper citation before putting back this Unreferenced claim. The info box clearly states Vedic period as “followed by”, which is pretty evident by the Indo-Aryan migration. Again, I strongly suggest you provide a current peer reviewed source in light of recent findings. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 23:26, 15 December 2018 (UTC))

@Highpeaks35: I think you didn't get my point here. The field is not there to describe time frames. It's there to put in cultural entities.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 23:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: Again, you fail to provide reference. According to White, there is evidence some elements of cultural synthesis between IVC and EVP (early Vedic period). (Highpeaks35 (talk) 23:32, 15 December 2018 (UTC))

@Highpeaks35:There are hundreds of references for Merhgarh culture as predessecor. Pick your favorite source: [7]. And why do you try to prove that "Vedic period" is the successor of Indus Valley Civilisation, when it's a timeframe, while the IVC is a culture? --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 23:44, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 and Diannaa: can you guys also give your input in this. As User:Joshua Jonathan correctly pointed out: "And it's (Mehrgarh) a place, not a time-period." Mehrgarh should be removed from "Preceded by" and replaced by "South Asian Stone Age" or kept empty since there is no definitive evidence one site transformed to IVC; or Mehrgarh site is a time-period as JJ pointed out. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2018 (UTC))

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: did you read any of these references? Where does it say Mehrgarh is a time-period? Or Mehrgarh being a singular predecessor? (Highpeaks35 (talk) 23:50, 15 December 2018 (UTC))

Template parameters

Can you show me, where the template says anything about preceding and succeeding time periods? --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 23:55, 15 December 2018 (UTC) All parameters are optional, but it should be possible to fill in at least name, period, dates and typesite for any culture. Parameter Explanation name Most common name of the culture, to appear as the title. map Image name e.g. abc.png Map showing the geographical extent of the culture. If no map is available, could be replaced with another illustrative image. mapalt Alt text for the map/other image. altnames Alternate names of the culture. horizon The archaeological horizon the culture belongs to, where applicable. E.g. [[First Temperate Neolithic]] region Written description of the geographical extent of the culture; probably not necessary if there is a map. period The period of the culture, e.g. [[Neolithic]]. dates The absolute date range of the culture. Take care to use calibrated radiocarbon dates. typesite The site which the culture is named after. majorsites Other significant or well excavated sites belonging to the culture. extra Any other defining characteristics of the culture. E.g. "House burning" in the case of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. precededby The culture that directly preceded this culture in its geographical range. followedby The culture that directly followed this culture in its geographical range. definedby The authors that originally coined the word or defined the culture. antiquatedby If the culture is no longer recognised, the authors that convinced the community that it is not a meaningful construct. module Used for embedding other infoboxes into this one.

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: What is your point? Mehrgarh is one site of several (i.e. Bhirrana or even Rakhigarhi [to an extent]), when did it become a "culture"? According to Rao, Hakra Ware has been found at Bhirrana, and is pre-Harappan, dating to the 8th–7th millennium BCE. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 23:58, 15 December 2018 (UTC))

@Highpeaks35: Mehrgarh is also referred to as a culture, it's not just a site. We can add all cultures which preceded IVC, where we have sources. And please can you stop editing hundred times while I'm trying to reply? --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 00:06, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: where is the reference? You make tons of statement without any direct reference with page number. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

@Highpeaks35: Because I don't like to play google for you. Here you can pick a reference of your choice again: [8] --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 00:28, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: "Because I don't like to play google for you": that is not how wiki policy works. The onus is on you for the claims you are making. And you made no peer reviewed claim or source that directly attests to your claim. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

@Highpeaks35: This is the talk page, not the article space, so we can be more liberal here in discussing stuff.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 00:34, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: that is not how it works. You have to provide reference before making outragous claim. I am going to move this to an admin. You seems to be making a mockery of wiki now. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

@Highpeaks35: Good luck. Btw you were the one who believed that the template tags would be about time periods, not me. --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 00:45, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@ThaThinThaKiThaTha: Exact word for word: "Vedic (Indo-Aryan) Civilization followed the Indus Valley Civilization". (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

References

"Abandoned"

@Doug Weller, Diannaa, and RegentsPark: hello admins. I think I have crossed by 3x edit undoing, for that I am sorry. But, can you guys help solve this dispute. User:ThaThinThaKiThaTha provided zero reference for his/her claim for this edit here; citing "Abandoned" as "followed by". I am leaving this convo for the next day or so, as I have reached my limit with this user, and the user will undo for the 5x times or more, even though I provided references for my claim, and the user provided none. But, as mentioned, I will leave it to admins to resolve this dispute if possible. Sorry again for my part in this edit war. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 01:00, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

Per the @ThaThinThaKiThaTha: reference on page 369, per the user's edit here it makes no such claim. It is all fluff. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 01:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

Comment: I need to do more reading about the predecessor culture(s), but "abandoned" is definitely not the best term to use for the "successor" field, especially considering the archaeological record showing that regional successor cultures (such as the Painted Grey Ware and the Jhangar culture) continued to occupy some of the exact same rural sites of the Late Harappan phase. -Avantiputra7 (talk) 05:07, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

References

Followed by

@Avantiputra7: exactly, Painted Grey Ware, Cemetery H culture, Jhukar culture of modern Sindh, and Rangpur culture of modern Gujarat are sucessors by any defination. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 06:58, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

Giving several place-names is an option, but they all (?) continue into the Harappan phase, right? For Mehrgarh, the exact name would be "Mehrgarh II-VI (ceramic neolithic)"; see the chronology-table. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:03, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

There is no succession of the IVC. Those other cultures are not direct successors according to the scholars, so there is no reason to fill them in by hook or crook.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 10:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't have too much time at the moment. But this dispute seems to be getting out of hand. So just a quick comment.

• The scholarly consensus is that the IVC grew out of the Mehrgarh culture, which seems to have been due to "Iranian farmers" drifting south of the Bolan pass and establishing farming and herding there. (The details are there in this article itself.) But more recently the Archaeological Survey of India started claiming that Bhirrana also had independent development of agriculture. The data is not yet published and there are no scholarly analyses of it. So, it is fine to say that the Mehrgarh culture was the predecessor of the IVC.
• As for successors, the IVC did not end, but slowly declined and dispersed. The Late Harappans continued to do farming and herding, and living in towns and villages, also trading with Sumer etc.. They seem to have flourished the most in what would have been considered the fringe areas of the original IVC, e.g., in Gujarat, Haryana, and Gandhara. The Indo-Aryans began to migrate around 2000 BC or earlier and started mixing with them. The cultures that Avantiputra7 mentioned are a product of that mixture. So I think it is fine to mention them as successors too.
• When there is a dispute, the page should remain at WP:STATUSQUO (i.e., the version before the dispute), and the discussion should proceed on the talk page until WP:CONSENSUS is reached. Please refrain from WP:Edit warring, for which you can be blocked.

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:29, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

The problem is people don't provide directly attesting references for these claims. It's not under dispute whether there was interaction between ivc-people and indo-aryans at some point of time. It just doesn't automatically mean, that the suggested successor sites were part of that process. It needs directly attesting sources.--ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 10:38, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

which archaeologist/ archaeology supports the claim of migration. IVC page should be based on facts not fiction, linguistics should be restricted to migration page and should not have any space here. 202.188.53.210 (talk) 22:12, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

IP, see WP:FORUM and WP:FRINGE. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

References

Proposal: "Successor" or "Abandoned"

[Should we give succeeding cultures in the infobox "Successor" field; or should we just write "Abandoned" in that field?]

• Support "successor": Per @Kautilya3 and Avantiputra7: statement above regaridng successor (Iron Age India: Cemetery H culture,Painted Gray Ware, Copper Hoard Culture, Vedic period). "Abandoned" is just false. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 15:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC))
• Support "successor": We could include a line that says "partially abandoned" (note that the current McIntosh quote refers to "abandonment of settlements in some areas"), but the others need to be listed as well. As per Kenoyer (2006):

"Beginning around 1900 BCE, this transformation continues until around 1300 BCE and overlaps with the Regionalization Era of the larger Indo-Gangetic Tradition" (pp. 29-30 of pdf), and: "The Painted Grey ware culture and an earlier Ochre Colored Pottery culture [...] provide the most convincing archaeological evidence for the transition from the Harappan to the Early Historic period" (p.42)

and p.43 regarding the continuous cultural evolution seen at Bhagwanpura, Haryana (already cited in the body); Witzel (footnote 203) says that this sequence "might reflect Indus/IA/PGW type populations"

And from Possehl: "continuity and even an overlap demonstrated between" the Late Harappan and the Early Iron Age (p.153) ... "good evidence for cultural continuity" between "the Early Iron Age cultures [and] those of the preceding Bronze Age in northern India and Pakistan" (p.156)

-Avantiputra7 (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of support for PGW being a harappan successor by the scholars. So we might add "Partially abandoned", "PGW culture" into the infobox --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

"partially abandoned" is not a successor. PWG is the most accredited and acceptable successor per the source; and most of us here. PWG should be listed for now. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC))

Some of the sites were abandoned. That does not imply that the civilization itself was abandoned. I don't think it makes sense to say the civilization was "abandoned". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - the proposal is not very clear, and the box says "Followed by." That's neutral enough, isn't it? To make matters more complicated: the IVC was not only followed by localized 'Harappan' culture(s) in the north; it may as well also have given way to the Dravidisation of the south.... How to include that? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:36, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I've eidted the proposal, to make it more clear. Regarding "Dravidinization," see Razib Khan, The Dravidianization of India. Note that Khan hypothesizes that the post-Harappan culture(s) was (were) diverse and hybrisized in two directions: post-Harappan/proto-Dravidians integrating into Indo-Aryan/proto-Vedic culture(s), but also Indo-Aryans integrating into post-Harappan/proto-Dravidian culture(s). Hence the thorough infiltration of Indo-Aryan genetic traces into all populations of India. Razib Khan's tentative term "Dravidinization" is corroborated by Narasimhan et al. (2018), of course. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:59, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I fully support your proposal. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 17:08, 17 December 2018 (UTC))

religion

i find this section very biased, bulls are shown in indus seals clearly indicating bull worshipping like nandi, the temples are indeed excavated from dholavira and the circular lingam temple perfectly match the outline of a open air medieval lingam temple from india, the tumulus from dholavira show spoke pattern along the lines of buddhist stupa, tree worshipping is carried out by later indians as well, indra statue has been excavated which also appears as mauryan statues, the indus seals themselves appear in later indian coins and the symbolism is aniconic symbol of hindu gods, one seal shows people holding bull standards, which are also depicted in the mesopotmaian seals as well, mothergoddesses statues in the indus also appear in exact same form in later indian history as well, the statue of priest king itself has been identified as a diety since it has some structural attachments for some ornaments, either that or it represents a ruler, i dont know either all the biased scholarship has been mentioned here, or all the scholarship has refused to entertain any evidence which may relate indus religion to later indian religion and hence either is very confused or is serving some peculiar agenda. 115.135.118.112 (talk) 14:09, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

See WP:RS, WP:OR, and WP:FORUM. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:47, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Bhirrana and Rakhigarhi as precursors of IVC

Could someone please tell me how Bhirrana and Rakhigarhi are being characterized as precursors to the Indus Valley Civilization. Is there a well-worn, widely used, recent text that makes an assertion of their inclusion? For Mehrgarh and Kot Dij there are many. For example,Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE, Cambridge University Press, p. 192, ISBN 978-1-316-41898-7 Quote: "With regard to the Indus Valley Tradition. we will focus on selected key sites such as Mehrgarh in Baluchistan and Kot Diji in Sindh, and demonstrate how the archaeological evidence supports their interpretation as precursors of sites belonging to the Indus Civilisation. In modelling the first evidence for domestication, permanent structures, long distance trade, the conservation and storage of agricultural surplus. and analysing ceramic and aceramic traditions, the village of Mehrgarh and its associated communities are the crucial backdrop for understanding the origins and foundations of the cities of the Indus Valley Tradition." Is there a tertiary source, like a textbook or survey article that considers Bhirrana or Rakhigarhi as precusor cultures of IVC? (Please note that hurried submissions to mega journals such as PLOS One or Scientific Reports or gushing reports of Bhirrana and Rakhigarhi in Indian newspapers are no paragon of Wikipedia reliability or of due weight. Conningham and Young still consider Rakhigarhi to be 80 hectares, not larger than Mohenjo daro, as its own page proclaims. And Bhirrana is not even mentioned in this 2015 book.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:20, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

IVC-related site plagued by India-POV promotion

A WP page I just discovered which is plagued by large-scale POV-pushing, with unreliable sources comprising, light-weight Indian "journals" such as Current Science, in-house technical reports, unrefereed reports of excavations, and so forth: List of Indus Valley Civilisation sites. Is this what Wikipedia is about? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:06, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

I have tagged it accordingly now. Dilpa kaur (talk) 10:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

IVC time period — "New" findings

May 2016 findings about IVC points that it's older than previously thought. Thus, I propose that the following, with reference and citation, should be added to the first paragraph of the wiki :-

Recent studies and evidences suggest that IVC was at least 8,000 years old, older than previously thought. This would make IVC older than the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations.

References

1337 siddh (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussed many times before; no. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:26, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Couldn't find any particular discussion here. Anyways, why? Any particular reason? 1337 siddh (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

@1337 siddh: did you search the archives? See for instance ]https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Indus_Valley_Civilisation/Archive_4#8000_year_old_claim this] discussion. I see you are citing this paper. I presume you read it as it's easy to find. What in their conclusions do you want us to include? Doug Weller talk 13:53, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

@1337 siddh: Multi-authored, inter-disciplinary, papers published in mega journals (such as PLOS One or Nature's Scientific Reports) with very quick turn around time between submission and acceptance (typically less than three months), with hundreds of papers accepted and published every month, with high processing fee paid by the authors for publication, are not on face value reliable or neutral secondary sources. They need to be vetted in the field first by the scholars of the field. These relatively quick publications are not the same thing as a traditional paper in scholarly journal, such as the American Journal of Human Genetics. And even that, in a high-level article such as this, is not as as reliably balanced (see WP:UNDUE as a tertiary source such as a internationally used text book or monograph written by the experts in the field: Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c. 6500 BCE – 200 CE, Cambridge University Press or Wright, Rita P. (2009), The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy, and Society, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521572194, retrieved 29 September 2013, or review of scholarly sources published in a journal. Typically, when authors need to quickly announce a result, they publish a quick version in such a mega journal. They subsequently publish a long detailed version in a more rigorous scholarly journal, such as PNAS or AJHG mentioned above. If and when the authors publish such a paper in a scholarly journal, we can take another look at the result. I should warn you that from my personal experience, a very large majority of such quick announcements do not see the light of day as durable, reliable, and WP:DUE contributions to their fields. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:22, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring

After listening to the advice of others, and backing off a little, Highpeaks35 had recommenced adding Hindutva-related POV material, of the Sarasvati river variety, to the article and is edit warring over it. I have added neutrality and accuracy tags to the article. There is absolutely no sympathy for this religious fringe notion among scholars of the IVC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:53, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

In addition, in his edit summaries, user:Highpeaks35, is claiming indirect oversight by Joshua Jonathan, by virtue of making a hurried post on the latter's user talk page. If anything, Joshua Jonathan seems to be disagreeing with Highpeaks35 there. See User_talk:Joshua_Jonathan#Indus_Valley_Civilization_question Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:59, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

User:Highpeaks35 is adding material referenced to sources such as: Saraswati Experts. Social Science-TM. Saraswati House Pvt Ltd. pp. 15–. ISBN 978-93-5199-594-4. The authors are Saraswati Experts! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:04, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Sigh... I took a look; this Sarasvati-stuff needs a carefull approach. I'll "oversee" it later. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:14, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Joshua Jonathan and AshLin. There is also a question of the quality of the sources used to cite the "Saraswati" edits by Highpeaks35. Here is one example: "Some archaeologist claim 500 Harappan sites have been found the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries; in contrast to 100 along the Indus and its tributaries, consequently, in their opinion, the appellation to the Indus-Saraswati civilisation is justified." This sentence has been cited to a 2016 book: deepak s (25 October 2016). Indian civilization. deepak shinde. pp. 20–. GGKEY:XTN7C23WHTT.. Please examine the book. It is a self-published book. Indeed it could even be self-printed. Examine also the caption of the Mohenjodaro picture on page 17 of the book. It says: "Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Sindh province, Pakistan, showing the Great Bath in the foreground. Mohenjo-daro, on the right bank of the Indus River, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the first site in South Asia to be so declared." This is exactly the caption of the Mohenjo daro image at the top of the Wikipedia IVC page. The author has copied his caption from ours. I know our IVC page caption. Indeed I wrote it many years ago.

Should our valuable time be spent on examining such poor quality sources and pointing out their inadequacies? Please note how much time has been wasted. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC) Updated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:03, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Saraswati House Pvt Ltd. publishes teacher' manuals (such as the source) which are clearly not reliale sources. Doug Weller talk 16:08, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Doug Weller, if you look at the diffs, it was removed. But, put back by another user. However, I am checking out on the talk to maintain neutrality and I hope FF does the same. It is best someone neutral like yourself or JJ or others, give a good look. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2019 (UTC))

Assessment

diff of Highpeaks35 edits (excluding the edits reverted by AshLin). Given my assessment here-after, most of it should be reverted, I'm afraid... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:22, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Joshua Jonathan, I agree. Please remove the content which do not meet standard, and keep those that do. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 20:16, 18 January 2019 (UTC))

Hi Highpeaks3t. You really should read Narasimhan (2008), and the relevant responses (Tony Joseph, Razib Khan, et.), and the take time to ponder on it. No rush needed to write about this tooic. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:55, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan, Highpeaks35, Doug Weller, AshLin, Narasimhan is a pre-print. It has not been peer-reviewed. See here. It cannot be included on the IVC page, indeed any WP page, as it is not a WP:RS. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:06, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Narasimhan et al. (2018)

This added

According to the latest genetic findings: "Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia."

References

Per WP:LEAD: the lead summarizes the article. Narasimhan is mentioned/referenced only once in the article, in only one sentence:

According to Narasimhan et al. (2018), the IVC-population likely resulted from a mixture of Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gatherers, and came into being between c. 4700–3000 BCE.

References

This piece of information can only be mentioned if it's elaborated in Indus Valley Civilisation#Post-Harappan. It isn't. In addition, it should be clearly attributed ("Narasimhan et al. (2018)"), and a full reference should be given - which is quite easy, given the fact that Narasimhan already has been referenced. Personally, I think Narasimhan is an interesting piece of information, but when used, it should be done in a carefull way, not by throwing one sentence into the lead, without corresponding section, without proper reference, and without proper explanation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:22, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

I have already showed above that Narasimhan 2018 is a pre-print. It has not been peer-reviewed. It cannot be included on WP. I shall therefore be quickly removing it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:09, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Ehm... no, you have not shown that Narasimhan (2018) is not a reliable source, you have only stated so.

• WP:RS:

Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people.

WP:RSCONTEXT:

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication.

Narasimhan (2018) is not some sort of WP:Red flag or WP:FRINGE. On the contrary, it stands in a context of continued genetical research, and has attracted quite a lot of attention of knowledgeable writers, who deem it accurate. One of the co-authors is David Reich, a heavy-weight on the subject. It has been cited by other scholarly publications, and drawn a lot of media-attention. So, definitely relevant.

• WP:RS AGE:

Especially in scientific and academic fields, older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed [...] Be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded, especially if it is likely the new discoveries or developments have occurred in the last few years.

Again, Narasimhan (2018) stands ina context of growing insight into the genetic history of India. Genetic research has dramatically changed with the introduction of whole genome analysis, a change which has generally been qualified as a huge improvement, wielding sound results. See here for some opinions.

So, to state that Narasimhan (2018) is not a reliable source, is to suggest that their results are not thrustworthy; that's not the case. It is a relevant publication, and can be used. What matters here, what is being used, and how it is being used. Genetic influx from ancient Iran is not controversial; post-IVC developments may await further publications, but are in line with other research. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:05, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan I've been reading preprints all my professional academic life of many decades. They are not reliable. The first page of the preprint (scroll down to mid page) says: "This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed What does this mean?" When you click on the "What does this mean? link" you read: "Readers should therefore be aware that articles on bioRxiv have not been finalized by authors, might contain errors, and report information that has not yet been accepted or endorsed in any way by the scientific or medical community." If the pre-print has already been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, it would be another thing. But this one says nothing. WP policy is quite clear. See Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#arXiv_preprints_and_conference_abstracts policy on preprints, which says, "There are a growing number of sources on the web that publish e-prints of articles and conference abstracts. Websites exercise various levels of editorial control. Unless the source exercises editorial control, e-prints and conference abstracts should be considered to be self-published. The above questions can be used to consider the reliability of self-published scientific material." The biorxv does not exercise editorial control; indeed it itself says that the work has not been accepted by the scientific community. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:39, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I know you we disagree :) Good point, about peer-review. Nevertheless, the article has made an impact, already; it's not like it's totally useless or baseless. What's more, it was published quite early, because the Rakhigarhi DNA-researchers were upholding their publication, because it didn't fit in with certain views on Indian history. The basic picture that Narasimhan et al (2018) is quite clear, and not disputed: ancient Iranian farmers mingled with Indian hunter-gatherers (or early, promitive farmers); from this population the IVC arose; with the decline of the IVC the southern IVC-population moved south, mixing with local populations, while the northern IVC-population mixed with the incoming Indo-Aryans. After that, those two populations also mixed. That's it. Nothing controversial, at least not for those who base their views on mainstream scholarship, like you and me. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:58, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see you explanation earlier in the big quotes. Please don't added the banner quotes. It becomes confusing. Just stick to the usual indented threads. Preprints are read by many people, but it doesn't mean that they can be cited in a high-level article such as this. (Consider Andrew Wiles's preprint of Fermat's last theorem, which wasn't just read, but its methods extrapolated in other publications. However, four months later John Cotesworth, number theorist at Cambridge found a flaw in the argument, and it took Wiles the better part of two years to fix it. It doesn't matter whether others have cited it in the perfunctory review of literature. You are welcome to pursue this at Village Pump. But in a high level article such as this there is zero chance that a 2018 preprint which is not peer reviewed, whose staging platform, itself says that it hasn't been vetted by the scientific community, can be used to cite any reliable or due text. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:16, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

PS If you take it to Village Pump, I'll be happy to pick the article apart. As it is, it is not worth my time, as it will not lead to any useful for Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:23, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

PPS Actually, Joshua Jonathan, no need to take it to the Village Pump, where we will get involved in general debates. Here is the main issue. The Narasimhan et al paper says,

"We document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia."

But nowhere do they claim that the Indus Periphery people were the same as Indus Valley people. Indeed the authors even say,

"Our evidence that a population with both Iranian agriculturalist and South Asian hunter gatherer ancestry (Indus_Periphery) was established in the 3rd millennium BCE—and that its Iranian agriculturalist-related and AASI ancestry sources mixed at an average time of around 4700-3000 BCE—shows that this type of Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry must have reached the Indus Valley by the 4th millennium BCE. However, it is very possible that Iranian agriculturalist related ancestry was widespread in South Asia even earlier, as wheat and barley agriculture as well as goat and sheep herding spread into South Asia after the 7th millennium BCE, as attested at sites such as Mehrgarh in the hills surrounding the Indus Valley (20, 21), and these domesticates could have been carried by movements of people. "

Again, nowhere do they say that IVC people wee ancestors of the large majority of present-day South Asians. If they don't say that, then how is this paper relevant to the IVC article? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:43, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Oh my, take it to the Village Pump? No way; too much trouble. We've discussed this before; if you want to take it out, take it out. My, you're growing soft... 'In the old days', you'd already removed it. But as a compromise: I'd like to keep Narasimhan for the ancient Iranian connection; that's not controversial, I think. But Narasimhan is not in the post-IVC section, and I won't add it there either, as it is too 'sweeping' for the moment, though I consider it to be reliable. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:23, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, they do equate the IVC-periphery and the IVC (emphasis mine):

By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia — consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC — and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry.

See also these articles:

• Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, Aryan migration: Everything you need to know about the new study on Indian genetics, Scroll.in
• Tony Jospeh, How We, The Indians, Came To Be, the quint
• Samanth Subramanian, Genetic study undermines Hindu nationalist theory, The National

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:23, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan This is the problem with pre-prints; they, especially in biology related fields. They do a lot of window dressing in the top level abstract. For what does "direct look" really mean computationally, when there are no ancient DNA from IVC, and theirs is from Swat at the periphery of IVC? Later in the paper, on page 9, they are more honest. They say, "While we do not have access to any DNA directly sampled from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), based on (a) archaeological evidence of material culture exchange between the IVC and both BMAC to its north and Shahr-i-Sokhta to its east (27), (b) the similarity of these outlier individuals to post IVC Swat Valley individuals described in the next section (27), (c) the presence of substantial AASI admixture in these samples suggesting that they are migrants from South Asia, and (d) the fact that these individuals fit as ancestral populations for present-day Indian groups in qpAdm modeling, we hypothesize that these outliers were recent migrants from the IVC. Without ancient DNA from individuals buried in IVC cultural contexts, we cannot rule out the possibility that the group represented by these outlier individuals, which we call Indus_Periphery, was limited to the northern fringe and not representative of the ancestry of the entire Indus Valley Civilization population." This is sadly the problem with biology-related papers. The computational biologists, especially the ones in medical schools, are nowhere near as qualified as mathematicians, or statisticians, or pattern recognition probability theorists. A David Reich, admirable man though he is, is not even a computational biologist; he is not quite in the league of an Andrew Wiles, and even Wiles made costly mistakes. This is a paper with 75 co-authors. Harvard, of course, does have some very expert computational geneticists, such as John Wakeley. Had he been a coauthor, I would have paid more attention to the details. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

They took IVC-periphery, because the Rakhigarhui-group was hesitating to publish their results. It has little to do with "biology-related papers," and a lot with Indian nationalism and the aversy against Indo-Aryan migration theory.

Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#arXiv_preprints_and_conference_abstracts policy on preprints also says

A number of questions should be considered when considering the reliability of an arXiv e-print:
1. Has the paper been accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal?
2. Has the paper been cited in peer reviewed journals by other papers?
3. What are the qualifications of the paper’s authors? Do the authors possess degrees in relevant fields? Have they published peer reviewed papers in the field? Do their institutional affiliations lend confidence to their work?
4. Does the e-print itself cite papers showing consistent results? Confidence in an e-print is significantly enhanced if a number of peer reviewed articles are in agreement with its findings.

Criteria 2, 3, and 4 are being met by Narasimhan et al. (2018). And WP:SPS ays:

Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.

So, Narasimhan et al. (2018) can be considered reliable, I think. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:40, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

And where is it written that 3 out of 4 criteria, i.e. absent the condition of being accepted for publication elsewhere in a peer reviewed journal, the paper becomes reliable? You seem to be suddently quoting Wiki rules, but ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room, which is the authors' own statement, "'Without ancient DNA from individuals buried in IVC cultural contexts, we cannot rule out the possibility that the group represented by these outlier individuals, which we call Indus_Periphery, was limited to the northern fringe and not representative of the ancestry of the entire Indus Valley Civilization population." Even if the results are reliable, for which there is no clear cut evidence, they are not relevant to IVC, only to its northern fringes. I don't care what the motivations were, what the explicit and implicit pressures bearing down on them. We cannot second guess the authors' own statement. The paper is not about IVC. You are welcome to include it in a article about Indo-Iranian migration etc. I mean, isn't that a little silly, right? The authors are saying they cannot rule out the possibility that their results are only about the north borderland populations adjoining IVC, not IVC itself, and we are saying, "No, they really meant IVC, but became the victim of Hindu nationalism." I mean who are these people? Spineless, craven, academics? Why are they succumbing to the pressure? If they indeed are, that is not my problem. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:26, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sorry, but that's just another essay, not a guideline. Those points should apply to published papers as well. I still think it depends upon its use in other papers (and the quality of those papers of course). My problem here is that I haven't had and don't have time to look at all the specific issues, but F&F's comments above suggest to me it doesn't have a use here. Doug Weller talk 19:31, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

• Coming in late on the preprint issue. In principle I think we should avoid preprints and wait for the peer review publication. Of course even then it's a primary source. If a clearly reliable source discusses a preprint, we might be able to use that source. I'm not sure just citing it is enough, for one thing we don't know how carefully (if at all} it was read. Doug Weller talk 17:38, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • While coming in late to pitch in, I would like to add that if we intend to follow the spirit of WP:RS, then a pre-print, no matter of what background, cannot be "reliable" because it has to undergo the process of peer review, following which changes would be made or, even in the exceptional case, scrapped altogether. If a catholic stance is to be undertaken than, the information needs to be excluded from the main article, and, perhaps a note to the article can be added with a brief summary of relevant comclusions and stating that Narasimhan et al 2018 is a pre-print. AshLin (talk) 04:54, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
• I also think we should exclude pre-print sources that have not yet been published. This seems to me an area too contentious and which also should be covered well enough in peer reviewed sources that there is no reason to rely on subject matter experts ones except in exceptional circumstances e.g. where the source is widely accepted despite not being peer reviewed, which is something likely to take years. Nil Einne (talk) 07:01, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

  I see the work has received some attention e.g. [9] [10] but I still think it's best to wait until peer-review. I appreciate it's frustrating since it's been over 9 months now but that's the nature of science, it's often not fast. Nil Einne (talk) 07:29, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Number of sites

The largest number of colonies are in the Punjab, Sindh, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Gujarat belt.

was changed into

Number of sites are in Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states in India, and Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan provinces in Pakistan.

References

"Number of sites" is unintelligible, but that can be corrected. The rest seems to be okay.

Sarasvati river

Added the following to the section Indus Valley Civilisation#Extent:

Since the late 19th-century, scholars have conjectured that the Vedic Saraswati river is the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. Satellite images have pointed to the more significant river once following the course of the present day Ghaggar River. Scholars have observed that major Indus Valley Civilization sites at Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Banawali and Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Dholavira and Lothal (Gujarat) also lay along this course.

References

• The sentence Since the late 19th-century, scholars have conjectured that the Vedic Saraswati river is the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. does not belong here, but at Indus Valley Civilisation#Name; and it doesn't belomg there either, because it has already been mentioned.
• The second sentence, Satellite images have pointed to the more significant river once following the course of the present day Ghaggar River. is a doublure of There is evidence of dry river beds overlapping with the Ghaggar River in India and Hakra channel in Pakistan. The second sentence is not referenced, but could be referenced by Giosan, I guess. The source for the first sentence, Satellite images ..., S. Kalyanaraman (ed.)(2008), Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilization, p.308, has a title which is indicative. And indeed, it is published by "Sarasvati Research and Education Trust." P.3:

The book is a summary of 14 books of the author on the subjects of Sarasvati civilization, language and writing system. The book is an answer to the ongoing attacks on Hindu symbols: Sarasvati, Vedic language and cultural traditions. The discovery of over 2000 archaeological sites on the banks of Vedic River Sarasvati and the possibility of identifying Vedic people from new discoveries such as those in Bhirrana provide a challenge to all researchers to unravel the language spoken by the creators of the Sarasvati civilization. There is an ongoing attack from some in Western academia, on Hindu symbols including svastika and the denial of the Vedic River Sarasvati whose ancient channels have been emphatically, scientifically identified. This state of academic denial is pathetic and is governed by a compulsive motive to establish Aryan supremacy through invasion or migration scenarios. Such Aryan Invasion/Migration Theories are in fact the myths. Sarasvati is not a myth but a reality and will flow again in North-west India thanks to the brilliant effort of scholars, researchers, scientists and engineers of Hindusthanam.”

Enough already? I'd like to cite p.308, but the version that I found only has 89 pages... Not WP:RS. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:22, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

• The third sentence, Scholars have observed ..., may be correct an sich, but the first source says The Minister of State in the ministry of Personnel, PG & Pensions and in the Prime Minister’s Office Shri V. Narayanasamy Gave this information in reply to a written question in the lok Sabha today. not WP:RS. And does the second source contain this list of sites? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:22, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

500 Harappan sites

This was added:

Some archaeologist claim 500 Harappan sites have been found the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries; in contrast to 100 along the Indus and its tributaries, consequently, in their opinion, the appellation to the Indus-Saraswati civilisation is justified.

References

Self-published source. Not WP:RS. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:22, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm sure I reverted a similar claim somewhere several weeks ago. Doug Weller talk 17:38, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

More edit warring

Highpeaks35 Please don't remove the disputed tags, especially please don't tamper with the text by removing the very edits that are disputed and have caused much heartache. There are many more edits in the article that I have to pick apart. Please leave them in for now. See user AshLin's earlier roll back of your edits. I have consequently undone your most recent edits. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:25, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Highpeaks35 Please don't remove the disputed tags. Joshua Jonathan has only edited the topics he has highlighted above. There are plenty more areas of dispute, for example, the controversial dating of Bhirrana and Rakhigarhi, that I have questioned above in a section. Until I have picked apart the unencylopedic edits of the last few months, please leave the tags in. I would prefer that you not edit this article until the issues have been resolved. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:47, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, I put those tags back here, but you started edit warring after here. You also put back spelling error, unreferenced content, and blog. You are not neutral. I stated above, I rather not edit this article as long as you don't as well. @Joshua Jonathan, Kautilya3, Doug Weller, and Avantiputra7: and others should look into this. Also, that other edit you are disputing was not done by me, but through WP:CONSENSUS. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 17:01, 20 January 2019 (UTC))

Highpeaks35 Both your reinsertion of tags and my revert was made at 16:27, 20 January 2019. I was obviously responding to your previous edit. Bias, or lack of neutrality that is, is a blanket accusation to make to a long-standing Wikipedia editor, who has contributed a large proportion of India-related reliable content over some 12 years, including to this article. It is not without reason that the lead of IVC page carries my language, and has for many years. You have already been warned by various people in various venues on Wikipedia, not least by some of the very people above who you describe as being neutral, whose editorial intervention you are now importuning. It is best that you not aggressively oppose me at every instance. I know most of the material; you by virtue of the nonstop tinkering of well-crafted, and reliably sourced, sentences, over a large swath of India-related Wikipedia articles, are exhibiting that you do not, and are now bordering on being disruptive. It is highly unlikely that I will betray my allegiance to valuable content on Wikipedia, by agreeing to a valuation that equates your tinkering to my contributions. Wikipedia is not a democracy. You should read Jimbo Wales's interview in NYTimes, "The Encyclopedist's Lair." It might be dated, but it expresses an underlying truth that people can't always put in writing on Wikipedia itself. Don't say you weren't warned. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:03, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, bullying an editor with false accusations, and now falsifying your edit war with an excuse is not acceptable. Again, read WP:CONSENSUS, and provide me the diffs. I did not add that content you are disputing, it was done through WP:CONSENSUS, not me. Your racist POV pushing and my way or the highway attitude is not acceptable. Again, I will not edit this article, if you don't. Let neutral users do it, who doesn't call someone "Hindu garbage". I have little appetite dealing with someone who insults me and my work by calling it "Hindu garbage". Again, editing wiki for 12 years qualifies you little. You started as an editor where the barrier to edit and put content in the early days was probably not much, now it is more rigorous. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 18:17, 20 January 2019 (UTC))

Highpeaks35 Please note that your continuing minor edits are unhelpful. Consider the last one Note that in expository narrative writing, the full name is mentioned the first time, and commonly only the last name thereafter, unless there is ambiguity. This is Sir John Marshall's third mention; he has already been referred to as "Marshall"before. Please revert your edit. You are constantly introducing grammatical or stylistic errors in the guise of fixing them. That section if already poorly written without your alterations, which might be well-meaning, but which in their relentlessness bespeak a lack of understanding of the contribution of others. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:09, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

 Done (Highpeaks35 (talk) 19:30, 20 January 2019 (UTC))

India POV pushing in the lead

I am surprised that the lead has succumbed to the nickel and diming by India-POV pushers, who have managed to get "Indian subcontinent" everywhere, a collocation that does not exist in the cited source, Rita Wright's Ancient Indus. I have restored the last NPOV, consensus, version that has stood in the lead for many years. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:56, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

What is the source of your distaste of Indian subcontinent? Upinder Singh (Singh, Upinder (2008). A History of Ancient and Early medieval India : from the Stone Age to the 12th century. New Delhi: Pearson Education. p. 137. ISBN 9788131711200.) uses it and many others. However, I don't have time for this petty argument. I changed it to South Asia to stop any further edit warring. I hope someone sees through your Eurocentric POV pushing in India related articles. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 05:05, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

"Rita P. Wright is Associate Professor of Anthropology at New York University. A John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow, she has conducted archaeological field research in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan." - her work is mainly in those 3 countries in anthropology. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 05:28, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

No, she is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at NYU, a Harvard PhD with speciality in physical anthropology and archaeology, who has been with the American team at Harappa for the last 25 years, the last few years as Director, who has written Wright, Rita P. (2009), The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy, and Society, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-57652-9 She has also done work on West Asia. Upinder Singh is a generalist, never been on a dig, who has written a high school/college text which is used only in India. It is used by 12-grade students in the NCERT History curriculum. I have used her text on occasion, but it is what it is.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:06, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, What does "it is what it is" mean? (Highpeaks35 (talk) 06:20, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Also, you did not answer my question above: What is the source of your distaste of Indian subcontinent? Although I have not finished reading this book by Jane McIntosh, the most updated book on the IVC, uses more of Indian subcontinent, than South Asia. Also, Singh's book only being used in India, does not invalidate it. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 06:29, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

I don't have to answer your question it was decided by an RfC right on this page, which chose to keep "South Asia." I suggest that you revert to my version in its entirety, and not leave the incorrect bits of text here and there giving primacy to India. As Joshua Jonathan says in the RfC: "Are you serious? IVC was mainly centered in present-day Pakistan; to use the term "Indian subcontinent," while there was no India at the time, is obviously not neutral. To avoid nationalistic side-picking, "south Asia" is more suitable." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)" I hope that is clear. You are engaging in a kind of irredentism. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:44, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

As for Jane McIntosh, why don't you read her own WP page, in which Mark Kenoyer is quoted: "Her 2001 book on the Indus Valley Civilisation, A Peaceful Realm, was less well received. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer wrote that "as a story it is quite well written and engaging", but that as an academic reference it is "seriously flawed", with numerous errors, unclear references, and an overall interpretation that "reinforces stereotypes of the Indus that scholars have been trying to erase for the past fifty years".[7] Like I said, I know the material, ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:48, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

This is a different book. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 06:51, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Only South Asia is RFC approved, and JJ statement is an opinion. What does that matter? I don't see the RFC being about anything else. The other content is well referenced and has been there for a long time. As mentioned, South Asia can remain here per the RFC. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 06:53, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

@Fowler&fowler: I think that you can't rollback in this way; you've also undone many small edits, including the short description, and removed sources. You also removed info abput predecessors and successors; info which was discussed, and about which concensus was reached. Calling that "a bogus concensus" is not helpfull. If you want to restore your preferred version, you'll have to do it manually, I'm afraid, keeping all the other edits... NB: I agree with you on "South-Asia." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:04, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan, South Asia was put back here. F&F needs to discuss his changes before making them. Or, it will clearly be disputed. He needs to build consensus. Right now, he is pushing his POV by stating things like "a bogus consensus". When we both agreed there was a consensus with multiple editors. This arrogance and entitlement is not acceptable. All of us here are bound my wikipolicy to build consensus. Stating "my version," and owning an article is not acceptable. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 08:51, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Joshua Jonathan Please note the changes I made in the lead, see here. As I can see there is nothing in the edit relating to precursors. Please tell me where.

• I was objecting to the change in the first paragraph which originally said: "mainly in the northwestern regions of South Asia, extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India." (cited to Rita P. Wright's Ancient Indus, CUP, 2009, page 1.), and which in Highpeak35's version said only: " mainly in the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent." (cited to Upendra Singh's book). Please also note that in his version, the mega journal PLOS One reference of 2018 is stuffed in this high-level article. What is that all about?
• Secondly, I was objecting to the second paragraph, which says in Highpeaks35's version says: "The civilisation was primarily located in modern-day India (Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states) and Pakistan (Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan provinces), while some sites in Afghanistan are believed to be trading colonies. A total of 1,022 cities and settlements had been found by 2008, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers, and their tributaries; of which 616 sites are in India and 416 sites are in Pakistan; of these 96 have been excavated.".
• The previous, long-standing consensus version was: "A total of 1,022 cities and settlements had been found by 2008, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers, and their tributaries; of which 406 sites are in Pakistan and 616 sites in India; of these 96 have been excavated. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala and Rakhigarhi" cited to Wright 2009.
• You yourself, Joshua Jonathan are on record as saying, "IVC was mainly centered in present-day Pakistan;" Consider, now, my original consensus version, see here. What is this fronting of India, this removal of the Indus and Ghagger-Hakra locations, and abrupt start with "Aridification of ..." seems to be nothing but nickel and diming by India-POV editors. Please carefully examine it. I am being honest. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:24, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

References

I have to reiterate Fowler's concerns. The consensus version, particularly in relation to the locations of this civilization, is that which Fowler restored earlier. I will restore that version myself as soon as my workload gets lighter.Dilpa kaur (talk) 14:00, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Dilpa kaur This is the consensus version that had been in the article for years. Please see how much has been changed. Now Highpeaks35 had reverted by incremental edits (as suggested by Joshua Jonathan), even when the "inuse" template is in place. Highpeaks35 I urge you to self-revert and allow me to finish my edits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:16, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:There is no deadline, it can be changed by editors. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 14:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

1. Your above concerns has been met, per the RFC.
2. I have changed that back as well. It is too petty for me to argue about. It is you just pushing your POV. However, it is not a big deal.
3. That is same as the second point. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 14:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

F&f: thanks for the explanation; I've no problem with that version. My point is that there have also been multiple small maintenance edits to the lead. When you simply roll-back to your preferred lead, you also remove those. So, if you want to change back, you'll have to work with current version, and not revert. Secondly, there was discussion about predecessors and succesors; this discussion was solved with consensus; you cannot simply remove this info. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:37, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan Oh, I see, the precursors and successors were in the infobox. My apologies, I didn't see that. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:48, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, why is this taken out? "which 616 sites are in India and 416 sites are in Pakistan" -- this is exactly from the Singh's book on page 137. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 14:50, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Also, why is this so important in the first paragraph? northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India, modern nation states can be mentioned next paragraph. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Location and geographical extent is very important. It needs to be stated at the outset to orient the reader. As for number, there is no consensus among scholars for that. Do you have the names of the 600 odd excavations in India? Please tell me. Is there this list anywhere. I personally would not have the 1025 total either. It is useless information. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:01, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

It is clearly listed in the source. Unless you can prove Singh is not a valid source, it should stay. It has been there for a long time. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 15:03, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

No it doesn't work like that. It has to be a consensus view among scholars. :I mean how many of these 600, if there really are 600, are more than just unrefereed ASI "reports," which are not subject to any open peer review? If they are, please show me the publication in refereed journals. I can certainly give you well worn criticism of ASI reports in internationally used text books on archaeology of south asia. They are infamous. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:07, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

We follow wiki policy and we follow source, unless you can state Singh is an invalid source. Again, your view on ASI, which is the leading origanization in India shows your Eurocentric POV. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 15:10, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Highpeaks35, this WP:IDHT attitude won't do you any good. An encyclopedia reflects the scholarly consensus. So, arguing based on a single source doesn't get you anywhere. I agree with Fowler that the precise count of sites is not of much value here. Moreover, the sites are merely those discovered. There is no claim that they represent all the sites that might possibly exist. If you want to claim that Ghaggar-Hakra was more important than the Indus Valley, then you have to present scholarly opinion to that effect. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:17, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Highpeaks35 I have now corrected the citation for the number of reported Mature Harappan sites. They both speak to 1056 reported sites and 96 excavated ones. The two citations are to works of Gregory Possehl, who was until his death in 2011, one of the world's leading IVC scholars. See his prolific work on his Wikipedia page. The Upinder Singh citation, which you have added immediately after, says on page 137, "Today, the count of Harappan sites has risen to about 1,022 of which 406 are in Pakistan, and 616 are in India. Of these, only 97 have been excavated so far." Upinder Singh, whose own background in in epigraphic medieval temple studies, is not even a careful writer of high school or college text books; for, what does "about 1,022" mean? I mean she has given an exact number which is not rounded to ending with a zero, and it is still preceded with "about?" Moreover, in conjunction with Possehl, the number of reported sites has risen to about 1,022 from 1, 056. Please explain without resorting to repeating Wikipedia rules, or please remove that casual, imprecise, sentence from Singh. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:56, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

I just saw the post of Kautilya3, which I agree with. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:13, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

South Asia is a recent term. Indian subcontinent is much older and textually grounded. Alexander did not come to conquer "South Asia" . He came to conquer India and that India started from areas currently in Afghanistan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.105.3.4 (talk) 01:20, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Recent? How recent? Likewise, how old do you think the term subcontinent is? For Alexander, India did not begin until the Sutlej, I'm afraid, and no one knows how far eastward of the Sutlej it extended. He most certainly had no knowledge of the teak-dominated forests of central India, let alone things beyond. If older is better, then let's start calling India and China the Indies and Cathay. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

References

"South Asia," "Subcontinent:" How old are these terms in English?

South Asia: Many people seem to think that "South Asia" is a 21st century term, made up by American academics, and that "Indian subcontinent" is the much older term.

• According to the OED, the first attested use of "South Asia" is from 1606, (to Jean Bodin, The six bookes of a commonweale (transl. Richard Knolles) · 1st edition, 1606 (1 vol.) "Mount Imaus, which diuides Tartarie from South Asia."]). Note that this is fairly accurate in that it says, South Asia is separated from Central Asia by the Hindu Kush and Pamirs, which are linked to the Karakorams, Himalayas, and the Kunlun mountains.
  • A second use is cited by the OED from 1821: 1821 C. Bucke On Beauties, Harmonies, & Sublimities of Nature II. iv. xviii. 220 "What the Tartars still continue to do by land, the natives of the islands on the south Asian coasts were accustomed to do by sea."
  • By the 1880s, "South Asia," had come more precisely to describe the India of the peninsula and above: 1880 J. Sibree Great Afr. Island iii. 48 Many of the birds are much more nearly allied to South Asian or Malayan forms than to those of Africa.
  • By the 1920s, the term had been used in the context of British India, even referring to the subcontinent: 1922 B. K. Sarkar Futurism of Young Asia v. 343 The ‘Indian States’ which, numbering over half a thousand, cover, in various degrees of subjection to Great Britain, over a third of the South Asian sub-continent.
• Subcontinent The first attested use of "subcontinent" (which, however, does not refer to the Indian subcontinent) is from 1845: 1845 W. Darby Univ. Gazetteer (ed. 4) 51/1 "The great Western [mountain] systems..range along or at no great distance from the western coasts of both sub-continents [sc. North and South America]."
• Indian subcontinent The earliest examples of usage are from the second half of the 19th century: Saxe, John Godfrey (1864), Poems, Ticknor and Fields, pp. 412– Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:38, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Latest reverts

@Highpeaks35: it's not clear at all to me to which version you reverted. It looks like you removed the followng (again?):

The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilisations that arose there in a highly similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. Recently, Indus sites have been discovered in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well. Other IVC colonies can be found in Afghanistan while smaller isolated colonies can be found as far away as Turkmenistan and in Maharashtra.

You also removed this:

According to Shereen Ratnagar, the Ghaggar-Hakra area has more remaining sites than the alluvium of the Indus Valley, since the Ghaggar-Hakra desert area has been left untouched by settlements and agriculture since the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation. (source: name="s2016"))

Why? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:33, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Hey Joshua Jonathan (talk · contribs),

1. The first one was unsourced, thus removed.
2. The second one is linked to a broken reference. Also, I could not find Shereen Ratnagar making that exact statement, let alone a peer reviewed source by her regarding this statement. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 21:28, 30 January 2019 (UTC))

Joshua Jonathan, to clarify, I am not opposed to the above. If proper sources are found, please put them back. I could not find any proper reference, but if you did, please go ahead. Thanks again! (Highpeaks35 (talk) 21:48, 30 January 2019 (UTC))

Ratnagar, Shereen (2006). Understanding Harappa: Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley. New Delhi: Tulika Books. ISBN 81-89487-02-7.. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:11, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan, can you provide the page number? I can’t find this exact statement. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2019 (UTC))

It's the 2001 edition, page 7. See also Michael Danino, The Lost River, p.143. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:04, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

A similar, but more polemical, assertion can be found in Habib, Irfan (2003), The Indus Civilization, A People's History of India, Tulika Books, pp. 13–14, ISBN 8185229910, which states: "There is little justification for the name Sarasvati-Sindhu, recently coined to arbitrarily impose a Vedic complexion on the culture. The Indus basin includes the area along the Sarasvati, a small seasonal river, so that the coupling of Sarasvati with the Indus (`Sindhu') has no geographical justification. Nor can such justification be provided by the relatively large number of settlements found in the vicinity of the dried-up channels of the Hakra, Ghaggar (of which the Sarasvati is a minor tributary) and Chautang. The survival of the settlements in this area is obviously due to the lack of interference from floods (as the rivers were small even when flowing) and from later cultivation (which retreated as the rivers dried up, leaving the sites alone). Thus we have here no real proof that the Ghaggar-Hakra valley was either the most populous area or the core zone of the Indus civilization." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:22, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Michel Danino is not really an archaeologist or scholar of the Indus Civilization. He cannot be included in such an article; otherwise, all manner of fringe scholars will soon be here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:05, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Expansion of Section 3: Discovery and history of excavation

I have now finished the expansion of this section to cover the major excavations, ending with Mehrgarh, and stopping well short of more recent, and controversial claims. In the early years of the two nations' independence, archaeology in India was more protected from the incursions of foreign archaeologists than it was in Pakistan. (This, to some extent, is understandable. Of the two countries, India waged the much longer anti-colonial struggle, its leaders spending decades in jail, and was much more sensitive to potential re-visitations of colonial archaeology.) Without giving this particular interpretation, I have nonetheless charted the two arcs of evolution of archaeology in the first few decades after decolonization. All statements are cited to scholarly academic sources. I have worked hard to remain balanced. Editors with a POV favorable to India will not be happy, but it is my earnest request that they discuss their objections here, rather than nickel and diming the text with nationalistic rewrites. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:48, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

PS The British era remains to be rewritten, but that I'll do later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:49, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

PPS I've taken out charged terms such as "patriotic," and "nationalistic," which I had originally retained on account of the sources using them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:10, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Infobox and illustrations

The infobox has become too long.

Fronting with illustrations whose captions includes text not normally allowed in the lead seems like another case of WP:Lead fixation. If you can't get it in the lead proper, then stuff it in the infobox. I would like to propose that the infobox be drastically reduced in the manner displayed to the right. It is enough that only the most notable precursor (Mehrgarh) be mentioned; we don't need a laundry list so early in a page. The same goes for the successors.

Indus Valley Civilization

Geographical range	South Asia
Period	Bronze Age South Asia
Dates	c. 3300 – c. 1300 BCE
Preceded by	Mehrgarh
Followed by	Painted Grey Ware culture, Cemetery H culture

Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Sindh province, Pakistan, showing the Great Bath in the foreground. Mohenjo-daro, on the right bank of the Indus River, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the first site in South Asia to be so declared.

Miniature Votive Images or Toy Models from Harappa, ca. 2500. Hand-modeled terra-cotta figurines with polychromy.

Also, is there a reason that the former infobox image File:IVC-major-sites-2.jpg, which is very clear, is scaled in miles and kilometers, shows by name all the rivers in the region, is focused on IVC, is lead specific, and had stood in the article for years, has been replaced by one that is hard to read, that extends from Central Asia to eastern end of peninsular India, that seems to be name dropping by virtue of showing other cultures not mentioned in the lead, and is therefore, distracting and confusing, has no scale, moreover, not to mention that Mehrgarh goes unmentioned in it despite its important role as the major precursor to IVC?

As for illustrations, the world over there are only two sites that school children and college students read about. They are Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. Why then has the Dholavira image been added to the lead, the same Dholavira that the Government of India has nominated as a UNESCO world heritage site for years, but to no avail? The image, moreover, shows a stone wall, not the conventional one of unbaked bricks that the lead describes. Please note that this article is not a geographic affirmative action page, which for every spectacular site in present-day Pakistan adds, for balance, a site in India. One can examine the reliable sources and compare the proportion of scholarly attention devoted to Dholavira and Harappa.

I propose therefore that the current Mohenjo Daro image in the lead, File:Mohenjodaro Sindh.jpeg, which is very low-resolution, be replaced with the one showed on the right, which shows the details in much greater resolution. I propose also that the Dholavira image, which really shows no aspect of IVC that the Mohenjo Daro ones does not already show, be changed for a beautiful image of votive figurines from Harappa, shown on the right, which displays, moreover, the other great contributions of the Indus civilization to the world, the domestication of zebu cattle (whose humps are beautifully rendered in the figurines) and of the chicken, formerly the red jungle fowl of South Asia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:50, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Concur based on rationale for change of map and change of illustrations. AshLin (talk) 15:05, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I too agree about the predecessors/successors, and the image choices. However, for the infobox map, I much prefer the present one, as it gives a good idea of where the IVC was located. The older map could still be used later in the page for detail. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 15:23, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler: I created the map that is now in the infobox, but I wasn't the one who moved it there; it was originally just for the "Mature Harappan" section. Everything on the map is from the cited source. Mehrgarh is labelled on the Early Harappan map, as was the case for my source. When I last looked, many (probably most) maps of other ancient civilizations didn't have a scale, but if you think it would be beneficial to add one here and/or crop the map, I can do that. I don't agree that the old map was especially easy to read, but I have no objection to putting it back. I agree with the rest of what you wrote. -Avantiputra7 (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

@Avantiputra7: Thanks very much for replying. Thanks also for making that map; it must have taken a lot of work. My concern about your map is that for a new reader, and those are the ones one has to worry about, there are no labels to orient them. The present-day nations are not mentioned, neither is the sea. Scale is important because we say in the lead, that of the three classical civilizations of the old world, IVC was the most extensive. Looking at a map without a scale it is difficult to figure out how extensive it was. Also, it extends too far to the west and the east. For IVC, there is no reason to have a map going farther east than present-day New Delhi, or farther west than Sutkagen Dor in Baluchistan. The older map is lead specific, it is a CIA map from the University of Texas collection that is modeled by annotation precisely on the map in Rita Wright's Ancient Indus, CUP, 2010, page 3. Her's has a scale as well, that extends from 0 to 200 miles, just as the old map's scale does. The rivers are colored turquoise green in the CIA map, so I retained the same color for Ghaggar-Hakra. This seasonal rivers length is exactly the same as in Wright's map. The two maps in Possehl's Indus Civilization have exactly the same horizontal range, and has the same scale (0 to 200 miles). The other thing I like about the CIA map that its topographical details are higher res. You can make out that Mehrgarh is at the head of a pass through the Baluchistan mountains, though Bolan Pass itself is not marked. It has longitude and latitude. All the rivers of the region are labeled. You can make out that Lothal is not too far from the Sabarmati River. You can make out that Rakhigarhi, Kalibangan are somewhere in the range of 150 to 200 miles and between NW and WNW of New Delhi. In general, this map is far easier for orientation. It may be that the convention in archaeology is to not have a scale, but these two fairly reliable books do have scales. Perhaps you can tell me why you find the old map hard to read. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:31, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Ok, that's a persuasive argument for the old map as the best lead-specific one. I just find some of the labels hard to read against the shaded relief or when the text crosses a border. I would have tried somewhat increasing the background map's brightness, and decreasing the contrast or saturation, before adding the labels and red markers. Edit: Just noticed a typo in the map: "Kaligangan" should be "Kalibangan". -Avantiputra7 (talk) 02:17, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

@Avantiputra7: OK, those are legitimate objections. Why don't we let you map remain until I have a better version of the old map based on your suggestions.

There are other issues with the pictures on this page which are in more dire need for being addressed. I'll open a different section below for those. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:01, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the predecessors and successors, I prefer to keep the longer list, because it's more informative.But it's not a big deal ("het is geen halszaak"; Reverso is very helpfull for this kid of translations). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:25, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: "It is not a neck-issue" (says Google translate, from Dutch), i.e. I'm guessing, is not something you would put something (neck, life) on the line for. Not sure I understood, "Reverso is very helpful for this kid (kind?) of translations." Do you mean, it should be translated, "A neck issue it is not?" As for the infobox, but I am generally concerned that it not become a repository, or storehouse, for information that in the text alone would not make the cut for the lead. I'm troubled by Bhirrana and Rakhigarhi claims. Hurried publications in mega journals (such as PLOS One, or Scientific Reports), with high submission fee, and quick turn around time, that are not thereafter backed up by detailed articles in conventional journals, nor any echo in widely read textbooks published by academic publishers, is problematic in the article, let alone the lead. But if it is not a big issue for you in the infobox, I will make these changes a week after my first post, i.e. on February 2, if there are no objections from others, and we'll have the general discussion about the text later. Thank you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:19, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

@AshLin:, @Kautilya3:, @Avantiputra7:, @Joshua Jonathan: It is week now since I made my first post and I have interpreted the responses here to constitute partial consensus for the following edits: changing the two images in the lead; changing the the recursors and successors in the infobox. I have however retained Avantiputra7's map (see discussion above). Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:45, 2 February 2019 (UTC)