Harappan archaeology

Ancient bricks, seals, and related structural remains provided important early indications of the Harappan civilisation. Bricks pointed to substantial built settlements, while seals showed distinctive symbols, animals, and administrative or commercial practices. Therefore option B is correct. Massive stone temples, iron weapons, and gold coins do not represent the characteristic early evidence used to identify Harappan urban sites.

Daya Ram Sahni is associated with the early excavation of the Harappa site, carried out under the Archaeological Survey of India. His work helped reveal the importance of the site and its material remains. Thus option A is correct. Sahni did not decipher the still-unread Harappan script, build Lothal’s dockyard, or discover Mesopotamia; those claims confuse different people, places, and achievements.

R. D. (Rakhal Das) Banerji is closely associated with the identification and early excavation of Mohenjodaro in Sindh. His observations helped establish that the mound represented a major ancient urban site connected with the Harappan civilisation. Therefore option C is correct. Kalibangan, Dholavira, and Banawali are important sites, but they are not the site chiefly paired with Banerji in this context.

John Marshall announced that excavations at Harappa and Mohenjodaro had revealed an previously unknown ancient civilisation, now called the Indus or Harappan civilisation. This transformed interpretations of South Asian history by showing the existence of an early urban culture. Option B is correct. The announcement was not about the beginning of the Iron Age, translation of Vedic texts, or a change in the Indus River’s course.

The formal announcement of the Harappan civilisation took place in the 1920s, following important excavations at Harappa and Mohenjodaro and John Marshall’s public communication of their significance. Therefore option B is correct. The 1860s preceded the recognised discovery, while the 1950s and 1980s are much later and relate to other phases of archaeological research rather than the original announcement.

The governing concept is archaeobotany, the study of plant remains recovered from archaeological contexts. Seeds, charcoal, wood, grains and other botanical traces can reveal what crops people cultivated, what foods they used and how the environment changed. Therefore option A is correct. Metal weapons belong mainly to artefact studies, skeletons to bioarchaeology, and seals to studies of symbols, administration or exchange.

Bathrooms inside houses, together with channels carrying wastewater away, indicate attention to domestic cleanliness and controlled water disposal. When these household arrangements connect with street drains, they also show how private spaces were linked to wider urban infrastructure. Therefore option A is correct. Such features do not directly prove military activity, tax collection, or script instruction.

The governing concept is source criticism: historians use the kind of evidence that survives and assess its limitations. Because the Harappan script has not been deciphered and contemporary literary narratives are unavailable, research depends mainly on material remains such as buildings, pottery, tools, seals, beads, burials and settlement layouts. Therefore option A is correct. Literary texts, oral traditions and foreign travel accounts cannot serve as the sole primary basis.

The governing historical significance of the discovery is that urbanisation in the Indian subcontinent began much earlier than previously recognised. Excavated cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro show planned streets, baked-brick architecture, drainage, craft production and long-distance exchange. Thus option B is correct. The discovery does not support an exclusively rural society, absence of metallurgy or absence of trade; the archaeological evidence demonstrates the opposite.

The governing concept is the geographical extent of the Harappan civilisation. Archaeological sites show that it spread across present-day Pakistan and large parts of north-western and western India, rather than remaining in one small region. Therefore, option A is correct. Options B, C and D are too narrow because the civilisation was not confined only to southern India, the Ganga Valley or Sri Lanka.

The governing concept is the revision of historical chronology through archaeological discovery. Before Harappan sites were identified, many accounts commonly treated the Vedic period as the earliest major phase of Indian history. The discovery of an older urban civilisation pushed the known timeline further back. Thus, option B is correct; the Mauryan and Gupta periods came later, while the Mughal period is much later.

The governing concept is Harappan sanitation and drainage planning. Water from bathrooms was directed through small channels or household drains and then connected with larger street drains. This arrangement carried wastewater away from houses and shows organised urban infrastructure. Hence, option B is correct. Fields, wells and granaries were not the normal destinations for household bathroom wastewater in the planned settlement system.

The Harappan drainage system was planned not only to carry wastewater away but also to permit maintenance. Covered drains included inspection holes and removable slabs or covers, through which accumulated dirt could be removed and blocked sections repaired. Therefore, option C is correct. The other options deny the existence of maintenance arrangements or confuse drainage with the source of water and are not supported by archaeological evidence.

Harappa is traditionally associated with large brick structures interpreted as granaries or storage facilities. The exact function of these buildings remains debated, so the interpretation should be stated cautiously, but Harappa is the expected answer in school-level history. Lothal is especially noted for its dockyard, Dholavira for reservoirs and town planning, and Surkotada for its settlement remains. Thus, option D is correct.

The plough was the agricultural tool used to turn and prepare soil for sowing. Archaeological evidence includes furrow marks at Kalibangan and models or representations of ploughs from Harappan contexts. These clues indicate knowledge of plough-based cultivation, although farming methods may have varied by region. Option A is therefore correct; a sword was a weapon, a chisel a craft tool, and a loom was used for weaving.

Harappan communities probably used more than one method to obtain water for cultivation. Wells supplied water locally, while canal-like channels or managed watercourses may have supported irrigation in some regions. Because the evidence differs from site to site, the word “possibly” is important. Option B is correct. The alternatives are too absolute, environmentally unsuitable, or unsupported by archaeological evidence.

Archaeological evidence of rice has been reported from Lothal and Rangpur, making option C the expected answer. This does not mean rice was the dominant crop throughout the civilisation. Wheat and barley were more widespread, while crop choices varied with local climate, soil and water availability. The other site pairs are not the standard pair associated with rice evidence in this school-level context.

Mustard was known to Harappan communities, and archaeological evidence indicates that it was among the crops cultivated or used in the civilisation. Its seeds could serve as food and could also be pressed for oil. Option D is correct. Sunflower, soybean and groundnut are not the standard oilseed answer for the Harappan period in this syllabus and are therefore unsuitable distractors for this question.

Cattle, including cows and bulls, were important domesticated animals in Harappan society. Cows could provide milk, while bulls were useful for ploughing, hauling and transport. Archaeological remains and representations support the importance of cattle, although practices may have varied between communities. Option A is correct. Giraffes, kangaroos and reindeer were not characteristic domesticated animals of the Harappan region and are clearly unsuitable alternatives.

Terracotta toy carts are archaeological evidence for familiarity with wheeled vehicles, probably including carts drawn by animals such as oxen. They cannot by themselves prove every detail of transport, but they support the conclusion that wheeled movement was known and used. Option C is correct. The other options about sea ships, air travel, or walking only are unsupported and contradict the evidence.

Animal figures are the most characteristic images on Harappan seals. Examples include bulls, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and the frequently discussed one-horned creature, usually called the unicorn. Short Indus script signs often accompany these images. Option D is correct; portraits of kings, battle scenes, and mountain landscapes are not the dominant seal imagery.

The one-horned creature shown on many Harappan seals is conventionally called the “unicorn” by modern scholars. It is a recurring artistic motif, often shown standing before a ritual or offering stand. The name is descriptive and does not prove that a real unicorn existed or reveal the symbol’s exact meaning. Option A is correct; horse, camel, and deer do not match the standard identification of this seal figure.

The smaller Harappan weights generally followed a binary progression, in which successive values could be represented as 1, 2, 4 and 8 units. Such regularity indicates standardisation rather than random size differences. Therefore, option C is correct. Decimal progression is associated with powers of ten, while alphabetical order and no progression have no connection with a measurement system.

Timber was a useful raw material for construction, tools and fuel, but the Indus cities were not surrounded everywhere by equally dense forests. The Himalayas and forested parts of Gujarat were plausible source regions connected through wider exchange networks. Hence option C is correct. Desert areas and polar regions could not normally supply the required timber, while oceanic islands are not the recognised explanation in this context.

Most surviving Harappan inscriptions are short texts placed on seals, pottery, tablets and other small objects. Their limited length and the absence of large manuscripts make it difficult to determine the language and meaning of the script. Therefore option D is correct. Large books and paper manuscripts belong to much later writing traditions, while monumental royal pillars are not the usual Harappan medium.