Homo: An Introduction to the Incredible Sapta-Sindhu Civilization
Why migrate eastwards, and not any other direction?
The answer is simple, yet interesting. All known human species were naturally curious explorers, travelers, and survivors, constantly looking forward to making their lives easy. The Sun, being a major source of life, rises in the east like other planets or stars, and sets westwards. This makes it easy for all the species to fulfill their habitation requirements by moving towards the sunrise, and thus eastward migration only makes sense.
About 70,000 - 100,000 years ago these pre-Vedic migrations settled in southern Europe, west Asia, southeast Asia, and central Asia initially to form habitation in this region. These human species along with other homo-species evolved during the upcoming several years to establish towns, homes, tools, languages, farming, and agriculture. This region, per Sanskrit (oldest known language), is known as Aryavrata according to the Vedas, and the people are known as Aryans. As these species further evolved, the people living south to the Himalayas, and north to the Indian Ocean called themselves the descendants of ancient Indian Emporer and Legend Bharata (the Legendary ancestor of current people living majorly in the Indian subcontinent, calling themselves Bharatiya. Thus, the subcontinent is known as Bharatvarsha (more recently known as Bharat or Bharat Rashtra).
During this time as well, the homo-sapiens co-existed with the other Homo species such as Homo-erectus or Neanderthals. The Homo species evolved biologically in all aspects and we, the homo sapiens, are just a branch of the monkey family, known as the humans today. To get into the details of human migration eastwards and develop one of the largest, oldest, and greatest civilizations, we would have to look back at what the earth looked like during that period. Also, considering climate change and the Earth's 'cooling' and 'warming' periods (discussed in the previous post - Introduction: The very first civilizations on earth) we are looking at the geography, and the world's habitation conditions at that time, we will consider it as one of the keys to going back in time to evaluate this information.
Global Climate Change Data [Image Courtesy - NASA]:
A brief Climate History of India [Courtesy: IMD]:
Studies suggest that the Indian subcontinent has been considered a land of monsoon and heavy rainfall region where there are cycles of heavy rainfall each year. This evidence portrays a high chance of human settlements in the Sapta-Sindhu region and in the Indus Valley as well. Due to the heavy rainfall cycles each year, the Carbon Dioxide levels go down resulting in better environmental conditions. This can be seen as a major cause of highly fertile soil and river formations, which provided great habitable conditions for the first human settlements, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), of the government of India.
Conclusion - to the beginning of the deep dive into Sapta-Sindhu or Vedic Civilization:
These incredible settlements resulted and evolved into one of the greatest as well as the oldest civilizations known to mankind - called the "Sapta-Sindhu Civilization", about which we will learn more in detail in the next article.
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