Archaeological culture · c. 1400–800 BCE in Swat (Italian mission); some scholars extend it to the historic period
Gandhara grave culture (Swat protohistoric graves)
A protohistoric culture of north-western Pakistan known mainly from large cemeteries in the middle Swat valley, spreading to Dir, Chitral and Peshawar. The dead were mostly buried, sometimes cremated, in stone-lined graves with pottery and ornaments.
Ancient DNA from these graves shows people of Indus-related and steppe-related ancestry mixing in the second millennium BCE.
See Gandhara grave culture (Swat protohistoric graves) on the map in 1400 BCE
- On the map
- 1400–800 BCE
How we know
No writing existed; it is known from excavated sites dated by radiocarbon.