INDIA, May 30, 2016 (swarajyamag.com): HPI note: Our thanks to several readers who sorted out the misleading Times of India article published in yesterday’s HPI. This article in Swarjaya Magazine was written today by Arihant Pawariya to expressly to correct the errors of the Times article:
The Times of India tells us that it’s time to rewrite the history books. New evidence has surfaced which claims that the Indus Valley Civilisation is much older than we initially thought. Even older than the Egyptian and Mesopotamian ones. More than 8,000 years old.
The Times of India should be complimented for spotting this valuable research story, published in Scientific Reports, a journal published by Nature publications. Perhaps, it was the first newspaper to cover the story.
However, the story has some false claims.
First, its not “new evidence.” It’s an old study, from 2005, cited by the authors themselves. Their central idea in the paper is about the possibility of a connect between climate, agriculture and subsistence pattern during the Harappan civilization.
The claim that scientists have said climate change killed the Indus civilisation is plain wrong. This is not the impression one gets when reading the original research paper. Things are more complicated than that. The authors of the research paper say this in the abstract itself:
“Our study suggests that other cause like change in subsistence strategy by shifting crop patterns rather than climate change was responsible for Harappan collapse.”
The research paper, published on May 25, is attributed to Anindya Sarkar, Arati Deshpande Mukherjee, M. K. Bera, B. Das, Navin Juyal, P. Morthekai, R. D. Deshpande, V. S. Shinde and L. S. Rao.
Anyway, we will come to the topic of “what caused the downfall of Indus civilisation” (according to the authors) later. First, let’s discuss the finding that’s going viral, courtesy Times of India’s catchy headline.
Read the complete article at “source” above.