Jonathan Mark Kenoyer

“[Period 5 of Cemetery H] may reflect only a change in the focus of settlement organization from that which was the pattern of the earlier Harappan phase and not cultural discontinuity, urban decay, invading aliens, or site abandonment, all of which have been suggested in the past.”

“‘It is clear that this period of more than 700 years was not a chaotic Dark Age, but rather a time of reorganization and expansion.’”

“There is no archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan Phase, about 1900 B.C. and the beginning of the Early Historic period around 600 B.C.”

“Sites such as Harappa continued to be inhabited and are still important cities today. . . . Late and post-Harappan settlements are known from surveys in the region of Cholistan, . . . the upper Ganga-Yamuna Doab,. . . and Gujarat. In the Indus Valley itself, post-Harappan settlement patterns are obscure, except for the important sites of Pirak. . . . This may be because the sites were along the newly-stabilized river systems and lie beneath modern villages and towns that flourish along the same rivers.”

“Kenoyer (1991b) sums up the situation: "Any military conquest that would have been effective over such a large area should have left some clear evidence in the archaeological record. . . . evidence for periods of sustained conflict and coercive militaristic hegemony is not found" (57).”