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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Explain why the majority of the known Harappan settlements are located in the semi-arid areas with saline groundwater.

  • UPSC 2016
  • Indus Valley Civilization

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At first glance it seems paradoxical that the largest concentration of known Harappan sites lies in tracts that today are semi-arid and burdened with saline groundwater — hardly the setting one would expect for the subcontinent's first urban civilization. The paradox dissolves once it is recognized that the landscape the Harappans actually inhabited was not…

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Vanished Sarasvati and the Logic of River Migration
  • Climatic Desiccation and the Chemistry of Salinization
  • Archaeological Visibility: Why Aridity Preserves What Fertility Destroys
  • Harappan Adaptation to a Marginal but Resource-Rich Zone
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