Scientists Say They’ve Finally Solved Why This Ancient Advanced Civilization Vanished
Elena Martinez
2 hours agoFor generations, archeologists, historians, and sociologists have tried to understand why some of the world’s most sophisticated early civilizations vanished. One of the most mysterious stories, the Indus Valley Civilization collapse, has long been the source of debate and speculation. The group, which rivaled ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt in size and complexity, seemed to disappear with no explanation some 3,500 years ago.
Spread across what is now Pakistan and northwest India, this Bronze Age society built intricately planned cities, sophisticated water systems, and international trade processes before vanishing. After years of speculation, scientists believe that they may have finally found something that explains the mass disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization. According to experts, prolonged, century-scale droughts and environmental stress slowly but persistently undermined the civilization’s ability to sustain its urban infrastructure and agricultural base.
Climate Signals Hidden in Ancient Records
Understanding what happened in an ancient civilization requires researchers to reconstruct the historical climate pattern, using a combination of environmental and geological indicators. These included chemical signatures locked in cave stalactites and stalagmites, and water level histories preserved in ancient lake sediments. Scientists say that this data reveals a pattern of repeated droughts that sometimes lasted as long as 85 years at a time. These long-term droughts were combined with modest increases in temperature and a reduction in annual rainfall, even when the group wasn’t facing drought conditions.
The sustained shift in the availability of water not only forced communities to change how they lived, but also where they lived. Earlier settlements were typically sited in areas with higher rainfall and access to tributaries, but as drought intensified, populations increasingly congregated closer to the perennial flow of the Indus River itself.