Judging from the dispersal of indus civilization

Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilization artifacts, the trade networks, economically, integrated a huge
area, including portions of Afghanistan, the coastal regions of Persia, northern and western India, and
Mesopotamia. There is some evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to Egypt.
There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and Mesopotamian
civilizations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being handled by "middlemen
merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf). Such long-distance sea
trade became feasible with the innovative development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central
mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.
Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani), Sokhta Koh (astride Shadi
River, north of Pasni), and Balakot (near Sonmiani) in Pakistan along with Lothal in India testify to their role as
Harappan trading outposts. Shallow harbors located at the estuaries of rivers opening into the sea allowed brisk
maritime trade with Mesopotamian cities.
Agriculture
The nature of the Indus civilization's agricultural system is still largely a matter of conjecture due to the limited
amount of information surviving through the ages. Some speculation is possible, however.
Earlier studies (prior to 1980) often assumed that food production was imported to the Indus Valley by a single
linguistic group ("Aryans") and/or from a single area. But recent studies indicate that food production was
largely indigenous to the Indus Valley. Already the Mehrgarh people used domesticated wheats and barley and
the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row barley. Archaeologist
Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous
South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex
social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments."
Indus civilization agriculture must have been highly productive; after all, it was capable of generating surpluses
sufficient to support tens of thousands of urban residents who were not primarily engaged in agriculture. It

relied on the considerable technological achievements of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough. Still,
very little is known about the farmers who supported the cities or their agricultural methods. Some of them
undoubtedly made use of the fertile alluvial soil left by rivers after the flood season, but this simple method of
agriculture is not thought to be productive enough to support cities. There is no evidence of irrigation, but such
evidence could have been obliterated by repeated, catastrophic floods.