Harappan Civilization

Flourishing around 2500 B.C. a civilisation emerged on the plains and greater mountains of the Indus Valley. The civilisation known as the Harappan covered about 1,000,000km2 with two major urban centres of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. It has been suggested that the Harappans were one of the early archaic states along with Mesopotamia and Egypt. This has provoked a number of questions of whether or not the Indus Civilisation was the kind of complex society that is generally connected with the state.
To make a claim on the Harappan civilisation being a state, one has to be able to define what a state is. Many scholars don’t hold a consenesus as to what it entails, however there are defining traits through most definitions. As told by Possehl, The state is a form of political organisation. It developed amoung peoples with large-scale economies having considerable specialisation in craft and career tracks. The administration of the state is a prominent feature of this form of political organisation. A state is able to monopolises its use of force as a means of social control and as an action to protect, this form of configuration is placed under the control of a main leader, usually called a “king”. State leaders are seen in a symbolic light, therefore creating ties between policiatial matters and state ideology. The centre of state, which does not always have to be territorial, becomes a symbol of said ideology, therefore creating an offical religion for each society. Another defining characteristic of a state is that they are territorially organised, meaning membership is determined by birth or residence rather than kin relations. The residence of said state are also situatied in a centralisted area which has been built up to be urbanised.
There are numerous reasoning’s behind why a state starts. Population growth is one such reason; according to Possehl there is reasonable documentation for population growth during the key times of the Togau and Kechi Beg/Harka

Bibliography: 1. Possehl , Gregory L. Sociocultural complexity without the state: The Indus Civilization. Santa Fe: NM: School of American Research, 1998. 2. Possehl , Gregory L. Sociocultural complexity without the state: The Indus Civilization. Santa Fe: NM: School of American Research, 1998. 3. Service, Elman R. Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975. 4. Bogucki, Peter. The Origins of Human Society (Blackwell History of the World). Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. 5. Possehl , Gregory L. Sociocultural complexity without the state: The Indus Civilization. Santa Fe: NM: School of American Research, 1998. 6. Service, Elman R. Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975. [ 1 ]. Gregory L. Possehl , Sociocultural complexity without the state: The Indus Civilization, (Santa Fe: NM: School of American Research, 1998), 264. [ 2 ]. Gregory L. Possehl , Sociocultural complexity without the state: The Indus Civilization, (Santa Fe: NM: School of American Research, 1998), 268. [ 3 ]. Elman R. Service, Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution, (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975), 245. [ 4 ]. Peter Bogucki, The Origins of Human Society (Blackwell History of the World), (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000), 362. [ 5 ]. Gregory L. Possehl , Sociocultural complexity without the state: The Indus Civilization, (Santa Fe: NM: School of American Research, 1998), 277. [ 6 ]. Elman R. Service, Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution, (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975), 244.