Ancient site · Settlement
Mehrgarh
A farming village near the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, Pakistan, excavated by a French team from 1974. Its mudbrick houses, graves and granaries show people growing wheat and barley and herding sheep, goats and cattle, the earliest farming known in South Asia.
Burials held ornaments of sea shell, turquoise and lapis lazuli brought from far away. Later phases added pottery, copper and bead workshops before the site was left around 2600 BCE for nearby Nausharo, as the Indus cities rose.
- Dates
- c. 7000 BCE (excavators) or c. 5200 BCE (2025 re-dating) to c. 2600 BCE
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 29.38° N, 67.62° E
How we know
The village is well excavated, but its start date is debated: the excavators put it near 7000 BCE, while 2025 radiocarbon dates on tooth enamel put the first farmers at about 5200 BCE.
Nearby sites
- Mohenjo-daro c. 2500–1700 BCE
- Kot Diji c. 3300–2100 BCE
- Harappa c. 3300–1300 BCE; city at its height c. 2600–1900 BCE
- Kalibangan c. 3500–1750 BCE
- Dholavira c. 3000–1500 BCE (phases debated)
- Takht-i-Bahi 1st–7th century CE
Related
- Neolithic of Baluchistan (Mehrgarh) archaeological culture