Quaternary Research Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work. doi:10.1017/qua.2019.70 Geoarchaeological insights into the location of Indus settlements on the plains of northwest India Sayantani Neogia,b, Charles A.I. Frencha,c, Julie A. Durcand, Ravindra N. Singhe, Cameron A. Petriea,c* aMcDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, United Kingdom bDepartment of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom cDepartment of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, United Kingdom dSchool of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom eDepartment of AIHC and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India *Corresponding author e-mail address:
[email protected] (C.A. Petrie). (RECEIVED October 16, 2018; ACCEPTED October 9, 2019) Abstract This article presents a geomorphological and micromorphological study of the locational context of four Indus civilisation archaeological sites—Alamgirpur, Masudpur I and VII, and Burj—all situated on the Sutlej-Yamuna interfluve in northwest India. The analysis indicates a strong correlation between settlement foundation and particular landscape positions on an extensive alluvial floodplain. Each of the analysed sites was located on sandy levees and/or riverbank deposits associated with former channels.