Jhukar phase

The Jhukar phase was a phase of the Late Harappan culture in Sindh that continued after the decline of the mature Indus Valley civilisation in the 2nd millennium BC. It is named after the archaeological type site called Jhukar in Sindh. It was, in turn, followed by the Jhangar phase.

Quotes

• Jarrige (1983), in contrast, had long since pointed out that there were chronological problems with correlating the seals and other artifacts with the Indo-Aryans: "The mi- gration of these [seminomadic] groups [coming from central Asia] would sometimes be traced on maps based on the accidental discovery of certain types of artifacts5—princi- pally metal objects and seals—which could be stylistically associated with the Hissar III C complex." He points out, however, that this complex is now dated to the end of the third millennium B.C. making it contemporary with the Mature Harappan and not later, as was previously thought: "Thus most of these finds must be interpreted in the context of international exchange covering the whole of the Middle East and cannot be interpreted as reflecting the invasion of pastoralists in the mid-2nd millennium BC" (42).
  • Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.

• Jarrige (1973) complains of the tendency of lumping everything not typically Harappan under the rubric of the Jhukar culture, "a problem which is further complicated when, by attempting to harmonize the archaeological data with philological arguments, people have developed the habit of attributing to the Jhukar culture all discoveries amenable of offering some correlation with the Iranian world and Central Asia" (263). Jarrige goes on to consider whether there was a disruption of sedentary urban life in the Indus Valley and a sudden drop in agricultural productivity of that area accompanied by a shift to seminomadic pastoralism with evidence of warfare—in short, all of the features that would ideally accompany an intrusion of Indo-Aryan nomads. As the excavator of Pirak, the only well-preserved second millennium B.C.E. site from the area (which he dates from 1700 to 700 B.C.E.), Jarrige (1985) finds a "town" of some size with "elaborate architecture" and evidence of a more intense level of irrigation and cultivation than occurred in the third millennium B.C.E.: "Just the opposite of that which has been presumed on the basis of negative evidence" (46).
  • Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.