The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler

episode 59 the Morian Empire The So, The Indian Subcontinent. Last time we were in this part of the world was back in volume two when we were telling the story of

the Indus Valley civilization also called the Harappans named after the settlement of

Harappa.

But the more well-known settlement was the astonishing archaeological location of

Muheno Daro.

This is the oldest known civilization of the Indian subcontinent, possibly settling sometime

around 3,000 B.C.E.

The Indus Valley civilization seemed to disappear during the second millennium

B.C. and it may have been the aridification of the lands around the Indus Valley that caused populations to die out or move on.

We certainly see a decline in activity as we investigated this during episode 26 of volume 2.

Then in episode 28 of volume 2 we described how

Indo-Iranian language speakers migrated into the lands of the Indian

subcontinent from roughly the area of the modern country of Kazakhstan.

The Indo-Iranians, also known as Arians, diversified from other Indo-European language

speakers, and it would be the Indic language speakers who diversify from the Iranians before migrating

eastwards towards the lands of the Indus Valley. They would settle the lands

around the Ganges River, around the turn of the 1st Millennium

B.C. E.

Previous to their settlement, their lifestyles were somewhat typical of the nomadic pastoralists from the north such as the Scythians.

As they settled the lands around the Ganges River, they would begin a much more sedentary and agricultural existence.

These people would have spoken an early form of Sanskrit that would have been the language spoken

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