With the margins of Indian space, in Baloutchistan (site of Mehrgarh), one of the first world hearths of Neolithic development appears. During the VIII E thousand-year-old starts there the passage of an economy based on the gathering and hunting with a producing economy, comparable with that of the ages of the Middle East.

During four millenia, the innovations follow one another it, leading first urban areas out of bricks believed, domestications animal (goats, sheep, bovines) and vegetable cultures (barley) with a Neolithic era with ceramics with its apogee towards 6000, then with the adoption of the techniques of metals towards 5000. After 4000, the diversification of agriculture authorizes the formation of a network of urban areas, then a control of the space which supports the colonization of the valley of Indus towards 3000. This one then becomes one of the axial ways of the exchanges and the hearth of convergence of the regional cultures.  

In parallel, the techniques of Baloutchistan radiated in the direction of Gange, where they are frays with the local innovations, so that the hunters-gatherers of continental India adopted in their turn of husbandries.  

Civilization harappéenne

The reconstitution of civilization harappéenne is based on excavations carried out as from 1921 to Pakistan, in India and Afghanistan. Archaeological research shows today that this civilization was preceded by old local cultures. Among the difficulties of dating and interpretation, one runs up, in this area of the world, with the coexistence of stages usually distinguished according to the paleohistoric chronology.

The old phase harappéenne
As of the years 1950, to Kot Diji - hillock located on the lower course of Indus, vis-a-vis Mohenjo-Daro (or Mohenjo-daro), the principal center with the eponymous site -, of the archaeological levels, dated between 3370 and 2655, delivered quantity of objects to features harappéens (potteries, animal terra cotta figurines, architectural elements). At the time, one believed in an alien origin of the age of Indus; this old material was thus allotted to migrants come either from Iran, or of Turkménie current.

Since, many archaeological work in Sind (Amri), Cholistan (Kalepar and Bhoot), in the Indian Rajasthan (Kalibangan), Pendjab (Jalilpur) and Baloutchistan confirmed the existence of an old phase harappéenne preceding traditional civilization harappéenne directly. This phase of formation, which began to the IV E thousand-year-old and finished towards 2500, has also its local roots.  

Mehrgarh, the cradle
In Mehrgarh (Baloutchistan), in the Western part of what constituted thereafter the heart of the age of Indus, of the French archeologists highlighted a succession of occupations going from the end of the VIII E thousand-year-old up to 2500. In this long sequence, after the first three Neolithic periods - without ceramics, then with ceramics -, the old phase harappéenne is represented during periods IV, V and VI (the numbers return on archaeological “levels” corresponding in various states of culture). The interest of work of Mehrgarh is to reveal the existence of an agricultural economics completely developed towards 6000 before J. - C.