15 - Ancient South Asian cities in their regions

Summary

This chapter reviews current knowledge of the first period of South Asian urbanism, situating the Indus cities in their larger regional landscapes. It addressees the end of the Indus tradition and the cities that followed more than a millennium later. In conceptualizing the larger Indus phenomenon, questions of scale rise to the fore. The geographic extent of sites containing Indus material culture assemblages is enormous. The chapter explores two very different urban trajectories and urban landscapes of ancient South Asia. The first one is characterized by a small number of massive widely spaced cities that existed as islands of urbanism in a vast sea of villages. The other one is characterized by closely packed urban places in a landscape of cities. The duration of many Early Historic Indian cities continued much longer, many remaining vibrant centers of population long after the Mauryan Empire's fall and through numerous successive states and empires, and leaving a legacy that endures to the present.