Answer Key
Guided Reading on Early Civilizations of India
Directions – Complete the following guided notes by reading pages (170 – 174) in your World Cultures: A Global Mosaic textbook.
Indus Valley Civilization
1) India’s first civilization was one of the largest in the world, extending almost 1,000 miles inland from the Arabian Sea.
2) The cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, in present-day Pakistan, were the most important.
3) To support such cities, rulers of the Indus River Valley civilization must have collected taxes in the form of food.
4) They grew barley, wheat, peas, and sesame.
5) Many kept cattle, sheep, goats, and water buffaloes.
6) Perhaps Harappan merchants exported cotton to the Middle East.
Unsolved Puzzles
7) Indus Valley craft-workers made these seals, carving pictographic writing and figures of animals on them.
8) Unfortunately, scholars have been unable to decipher, or determine the meaning of, the writing.
9) Other statues suggest that animals, especially cattle, also had religious importance.
Decline of the Indus Valley Civilization
10) By about 2000 B.C., the cities showed signs of decay.
11) Without surplus crops, farmers could not provide food for the cities.
12) Scholars think that the Dravidian people who live in Southern India today may be descended from these Indus Valley settlers.
Arrival of the Aryans
13) The arrival of a nomadic and warlike people, the Aryans, may have contributed to the final collapse of the Indus Valley
civilization.
14) The Aryans swept into India through the Hindu Kush Mountains, but they came from the region of the Caucasus Mountains.
15) Their successes was due in part to their iron weapons and were skilled charioteers, who used fast, horse-drawn war chariots to
overpower their enemies.
Aryan Culture
16) Much of what we know about them comes from oral religious traditions known as the Vedas, which include hymns, prayers,
and rituals used in religious ceremonies.
17) Much later, the Aryans developed a written language called, Sanskrit, and their oral religious traditions were written down.
18) The warrior god Indra had many human characteristics and enjoyed such pleasures as eating and dancing, but the strict god
Varuna governed the workings of the universe and punished sinners.
19) Hereditary chiefs, called rajahs, ruled the villages, which the council of warriors assisted the Rajah and the chief priest could
carry out the sacrifices needed to please the gods.
20) The Aryans divided people into four classes, called, Varna, which consisted of the Brahmans or priests, Kshatriyas or warriors,
Vaisyas or (landowners, merchants, and herders), and Sudras or (servants and peasants) who waited on others.