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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Discuss the pattern of trade during the Indus Valley civilization. How far did it affect the nature of contemporary settlements in the Indian sub-continent?

  • UPSC 1994
  • Indus Valley Civilization

The scale of the Harappan civilization — spread across roughly 1.5 million square kilometres between Shortugai in northern Afghanistan and the Godavari basin — could not have been sustained by localized subsistence economies alone. Its standardized weights, uniform script, and near-identical craft forms across enormously distant sites are themselves indirect evidence of an integrated exchange…

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What the full answer covers

  • The Internal Circuit: Resource Zones Feeding Urban Centres
  • The External Circuit: Mesopotamia, the Gulf, and Central Asia
  • How Trade Reshaped the Map of Settlement

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