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The Coastal Indus Looks West on March 12, 2012 The Coastal Indus Looks West on March 12, 2012 Fortifi ed coastal settlements suggest that the Indus Civilization, once considered an insular society, shipped goods to the east DHOLAVIRA, INDIA—Most of the year, this lis during the height of the Indus River, or small island near the Pakistan border is sur- Harappan, civilization. rounded by thick salt flats in the estuary And yet Dholavira is hundreds of kilome- www.sciencemag.org called the Rann of Kutch. In late January, the ters from the cities long considered the heart midday heat is already intense, and the land of the Indus River Valley civilization, Harappa is brown and barren. Yet more than 4000 and Mohenjo Daro, which lie far upstream on years ago, architects and engineers designed the Indus River in modern-day Pakistan. But Indus passports? Kanmer’s odd-shaped pendants a vast city here with high stone battlements, recent digs and surveys in India’s western- may have been related to trade and travel. deep wells, huge water basins, and wide most province of Gujarat show that sites like and straight streets. Extending over 100 Dholavira may be the critical link between the and some are heavily fortifi ed.” hectares and excavated only in the 1990s, heart of the Indus and Arabia and Mesopota- There’s no doubt there were maritime con- Downloaded from the site was clearly an important metropo- mia in the 3rd millennium B.C.E. At a recent nections; Indus seals and artifacts have been conference in the found on the Arabian coast and in Sumerian nearby city of Bhuj, port cities like Ur (see p. 1092). And although archaeologists com- evidence of foreign material in Indus sites pared notes on the is scarce, seals from the area around today’s mounting evidence Bahrain on the Persian Gulf coast have been that this area played found at a small site called Lothal, 50 kilome- an important role in ters east of Dholavira and 270 kilometers from long-distance trade at Mohenjo Daro. In 1954, Indian excavators the dawn of civiliza- here unearthed a massive brick-lined basin tion. “There are more that they claimed was a harbor bordered by than 60 Harappan warehouses. Twice as long as a football fi eld sites in Kutch,” says and nearly 40 meters wide, the structure was Y. S. Rawat, head of built in the second half of the 3rd millennium archaeology in Guja- B.C.E., the heyday of trade with the West. But rat Province. “Most many Western archaeologists don’t think it are near the coast, was a harbor. “It was a tank” for storing water, Shifting currents. Sites in the province of Gujarat in western India are yielding new data on Indus life and trade. (MAP SOURCE): GOOGLE EARTH CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): RIHN’S INDUS PROJECT; 1100 28 MAY 2010 VOL 328 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS ARABIA’S ANCIENT CROSSROADS NEWSFOCUS Playing defense. Kanmer’s thick walls protected PROFILE: MAURIZIO TOSI the small settlement from prying eyes. ‘The Cobra’ Uncovers Ancient Civilizations— insists Gregory Possehl, an archaeologist at And Cold War Political Secrets the University of Pennsylvania. An Italian team led by Dennys Frenez of the University He told colleagues he was looking for ancient lapis lazuli mines. But when Maurizio Tosi crossed of Bologna in Italy hopes to resolve the mat- into Afghanistan at the height of the war between the Soviet Union and the mujahedin in 1984, ter; recently, they found hints that a wide canal his real goal was to locate wooden boxes that had once contained American-supplied Stinger mis- connected the basin with the sea, supporting siles. Those missiles threatened Soviet helicopters, and Moscow was eager to trace the route they the port theory. had taken into Pakistan. Meanwhile, a team of Japanese and Indian As Tosi tells it, Soviet operatives asked him to investigate, and the dutiful Marxist, who is also a excavators is focusing on a fortifi ed village University of Bologna professor, went to Pakistan and crossed by car into southern Afghanistan, then called Kanmer that likely housed between controlled largely by rebels. Instead of Stinger boxes, however, he saw only masses of child graves, and 400 and 500 people during its heyday between he decided to swear off the spy business, in which he had participated off and on for 2 decades. 2600 B.C.E. and 1900 B.C.E. Behind Tosi has been a peripatetic and infl uential archaeologist, excavating from Iran to Sicily and 20-meter-thick and 10-meter-high walls, resi- shaping new ideas about how humans fi rst began to live in cities and trade over vast areas. As a dents were busy making tens of thousands of young man, he dug at Shahr-i Sokhta in southeastern Iran, exposing one of the world’s largest beads from many kinds of stones, such as car- urban centers in the 3rd millennium B.C.E., far from the known big-three civilizations of Egypt, nelian, lapis, and agate, which were used in Mesopotamia, and the Indus. And in 1981, he discovered Indus material in Oman, sparking a rev- jewelry exported across the region. They also olution in archaeology in that country, and he continues to study connections between the Indus found three unique round pendants carrying and Arabia (see main text, p. 1100). Indus script and the familiar Indus image of The son of a senior government offi cial in Mussolini’s fascist Italy, Tosi turned communist as a teen- the unicorn. Dig director Toshiki Osada, an ager in Rome during the 1960s and studied paleontology and archaeology. By then, he says, he had archaeologist with Kyoto’s National Institutes already been recruited by the Cominform, the for the Humanities, believes the pendants organization that coordinated efforts among on March 12, 2012 might be a kind of passport used in trade. Soviet-infl uenced communist parties. Tosi says In recent years, dozens of Indus sites he only performed “four or fi ve operations.” have come to light in this coastal area, But the communist connection also served his which was once considered on the distant professional life. A 1969 visit to Moscow intro- periphery of the Indus. Most are modest duced him to Soviet archaeologists who were in size like Kanmer. “We’re fi nding small making important discoveries in Central Asia, sites with massive fortifi cations, where raw contacts that proved infl uential in Tosi’s later materials are stored,” says Osada. He sug- ideas about interconnected societies. www.sciencemag.org gests that these settlements were an impor- When Tosi and the late Serge Cleuziou tant link in the chain of commerce reach- of the French National Center for Scientific ing from the Himalayas to Mesopotamia. Research in Paris began to work in Oman in the Such fortifications are rare elsewhere in 1980s, they abandoned the old way of seeing the Indus. Kuldeep Bhan of India’s Maha- the emergence of civilization from a center to raja Sayajirao University of Baroda, who is a periphery. Instead they postulated a network excavating a nearby site called Shikarpur, of linked societies including Mesopotamia, says that the fortifi cations could be a sign Arabia, Central Asia, and the Indus, each with Downloaded from of confl ict with locals who refused to adopt a unique culture but sharing goods, ideas, and Indus ways, or the walls may have helped to technologies. Tosi helped create a regular con- protect goods from attackers by land or sea. ference to discuss what he named the Middle “Craft may have been heavily controlled,” Asian Interaction Sphere, and the idea, once he says. Even today, Bhan notes, there are considered fringe, is now mainstream. closely held secrets in Gujarati bead produc- Tosi’s politics, sharp mind, many wives Cold warrior. Tosi successfully lobbied for a new tion. Just as excavators in Arabia are seeking (including a former Soviet political commis- view of ancient Asia. the port where Indus traders unloaded their sar), and often-brusque personality make him pots, Bhan hopes to fi nd clear evidence of a controversial fi gure. “A brilliant monster,” says one colleague, who declines to be named. Although maritime life at Shikarpur, which sits within he has many enemies, few dispute his intellectual capacity. Tosi revels in what he claims is his nick- a few kilometers of the sea. He has found a name in the fi eld—the cobra. In his many intellectual contests, he claims victory. “I’ve been in so dozen or so Indus seals but is on the lookout many battles and never lost a fi ght,” he boasts. for material that might hint at the multicul- “Maurizio’s contributions have been immense,” says archaeologist Philip Kohl of Wellesley Col- tural nature of a port town. One of the great lege in Massachusetts. “He’s one of the smartest and most knowledgeable persons I’ve ever met, but mysteries of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. is I also feel he could have accomplished even more if he had control over his personal life. But then he who built and sailed the ships that connected wouldn’t be Maurizio.” the Indus, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopota- A heart operation has slowed Tosi of late, but during a recent visit to India he was busy organizing mia. Excavators like Bhan hope this harsh a meeting to bring modern experts in port facilities together with archaeologists to understand how landscape will soon reveal their identities. ancient Indus harbors may have operated—and by so doing, forge economic connections between CREDIT: MAURIZIO TOSI CREDIT: –ANDREW LAWLER today’s Italy and India.
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