River Saraswati And Harappan City Of Dholavira Could Have Been Lost Due To Climate Change

Mythical River Saraswati is a topic that has intrigued archeologists for long. While many view it as myth there are others who believe that such a river once did flow through northwestern India.

Over the years there have been several studies to find the location of the river and even attempts to revive it. Now researchers have claimed that they have found the reason for the river's disappearance some 4000 years ago.

According to a study by a joint team of researchers from IIT Kharagpur, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Deccan College PGRI Pune, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) and the Department of Culture, Gujarat the river dried out due to a drought that was caused by climate change.

According to the researchers, Dholavira considered to b the most advanced city in the Harappan civilization was also lost due to the drying up of the river. They said that the growth and decline of the Dholavira, located in the Rann were directly linked to a river that resembles the mythical Himalayan River Saraswati.

Dholavira have for the first time connected the decline of a city to the disappearance of a Himalayan snow-fed river which once flowed in the Rann of Kutch, according to a study.

An IIT Kharagpur statement said that a research team "connected the dots between the growth and decline of Dholavira, the most spectacular and largest excavated Harappan city in India located in the Rann with a river which resembles the mythical Himalayan river Saraswati".

The data suggests that mangroves grew around the Rann and distributaries of Indus or other palaeo channels (a remnant of an active river filled by sediments) dumped water in the Rann near the southern margin of Thar desert, the IIT-KGP statement said. "This is the first direct evidence of glacial-fed rivers which are quite like the mythological Saraswati, flowing in the vicinity of Rann," IIT Kharagpur's Prof. Anindya Sarkar who led the research, said.

Dr. Ravi Bhushan and Navin Juyal from PRL, Ahmedabad dated the carbonates from human bangles, fish otolith and found that the site was occupied from 5,500 years back i.e. pre-Harappan period to late Harappan period, the statement said.

Dr. Arati Deshpande Mukherjee of Deccan College pointed out at the climate evidence coming from high-resolution oxygen isotopes in snail shells Terebralia palustris which typically grow in mangroves and was a source of food for the Dholavirans. The city expanded till 4400 years followed by an abrupt decline nearly 4000 years back - as per the findings of ASI's researchers Dr. R.S. Bisht and Y.S. Rawat who were part of the team, it said.

"Though the Dholavirans adopted excellent water conservation strategy by building dams, reservoirs and pipelines, they were pushed to the limit by a catastrophic mega-drought collapsing the city due to the drying up of the river," Sarkar said. He said Dholavira presents a "classic case for understanding how climate change can increase future drought risk" as predicted by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) working group.

The research indicates that the collapse of Harappan Dholavira was near-synchronous to the decline at all the Harappan sites in India as well as societal collapse of Mesopotamia, Greece, China and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

¡°This was due to the disruption of the westerlies and Indian and East Asian monsoons at 4200 years back leading to ~250 year widespread drought. The collapse of Dholavira is very important evidence for reconstructing these global archaeological and climate events,¡± said Prof. Mike Walker of University of Wales who discovered the Meghalayan Stage.