Key Stage 2 history · World history

KS2 Indus Valley civilisation: a guide for parents

The Indus Valley civilisation flourished about 4,500 years ago in what is now Pakistan and north-west India. It is one of four depth-study options in the National Curriculum, so only some schools choose it. Children learn about its carefully planned cities, its drains and bricks, its seals and trade, and the mystery of a script that nobody can yet read, which makes it a good topic for learning how historians use evidence.

The Indus Valley civilisation, explained

The Indus Valley civilisation grew up beside the River Indus and its tributaries from about 2600 BC, and its mature cities flourished until about 1900 BC. Its remains cover a large area of modern Pakistan and north-west India, and are sometimes called the Harappan civilisation after the site of Harappa. The best-known cities are Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, but there were also towns such as Dholavira and Lothal and hundreds of smaller villages. Ruins at Harappa had been noticed earlier, but it was only in the 1920s that archaeologists realised they belonged to a great civilisation that had been forgotten for thousands of years.

What stands out is how carefully the cities were planned. Streets were laid out in a grid, and houses were built from standard-sized baked bricks. Many houses had their own bathroom and a drain that led into covered channels running along the streets, a level of sanitation that was rare in the ancient world. Mohenjo-daro has a large public pool called the Great Bath, which may have been used for washing in ceremonies. There were also wells, storehouses and workshops for pottery, beads and metalwork.

People farmed wheat, barley, peas and cotton, and kept cattle, sheep and goats. They made beautiful beads and jewellery, and small figures in clay and metal. Merchants used carved stone seals showing animals, and standard weights and measures so that trade was fair. Evidence such as Indus seals found in Mesopotamia suggests the people traded with distant lands by river and sea. The Indus people also had a script of symbols, mostly found on seals, but nobody has yet been able to read it, so historians depend on objects and buildings rather than written accounts.

That is the key lesson for children in this study: there are many things that we do not know. No obvious palaces or royal tombs have been found, so we cannot be sure who ruled or how. The reasons for the decline of the cities around 1900 BC are still debated, and ideas include changing climate and shifting rivers. Children practise saying “the evidence suggests” and “we can’t be certain”, and learn to build a careful, well-organised answer from objects, maps and plans.

Words your child will hear

Civilisation: A society with cities, government, specialist jobs, trade and usually writing.
Harappan: Another name for the Indus Valley civilisation, taken from the site of Harappa.
Grid plan: Streets laid out in straight lines crossing at right angles, like squares on graph paper.
Drainage: A system of channels that carry waste water away from homes.
Seal: A small carved stone pressed into clay to mark goods or documents as belonging to someone.
Undeciphered: Not yet understood. Nobody can read the Indus script.
Archaeologist: A person who studies the past by excavating and examining remains.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

Pupils should be taught about the achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer, The Indus Valley, Ancient Egypt, The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
Pupils should construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information.
Pupils should understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

A worked example: using evidence to answer a question

Enquiry question: “How do we know that the cities of the Indus Valley were carefully planned?” Build an answer from evidence.

Look at the plan of a city such as Mohenjo-daro drawn by archaeologists. The main streets run in straight lines and cross at right angles, forming blocks of houses.
Look at the buildings. Excavated bricks are baked and of a standard shape and size, so many builders must have followed the same rules. Without shared standards, bricks would not fit together so neatly.
Look at the drains. Houses have their own bathrooms with drains connecting to covered drains along the streets, which would need to be laid out before or alongside the houses, not added afterwards at random.
Put the evidence together. Grid streets, standard bricks and linked drains all point to organisation and agreement across the city, perhaps by a ruling group or council.
Say what is uncertain. We don’t know who made the decisions, because no palace or ruler’s tomb has been found and the script cannot be read. We also have to remember that only part of each city has been excavated.

The grid layout, the standard bricks and the connected drains all show planning and cooperation on a large scale. However, we can’t say who organised it, because the written evidence is still undeciphered.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking the Indus Valley civilisation is the same as Ancient Egypt or Sumer

All three are ancient river civilisations that children meet in the same overview, so features such as pyramids, ziggurats and cuneiform get mixed up.

What helps: Keep a chart with the river, location, buildings and writing of each one. The Indus has planned grid cities, drains and seals, but no pyramids or ziggurats.

Believing that we can read everything about them

Children expect ancient societies to have left stories, as the Egyptians did. The Indus script is short and undeciphered, so there are no records of kings, laws or events.

What helps: Treat this as a puzzle: what could we learn from objects, buildings and bones alone, and what remains a mystery?

Thinking these were small, simple villages

Early civilisations can sound primitive, so children don’t expect the size and organisation of the cities, or the sophistication of their drains.

What helps: Compare with a modern town: Mohenjo-daro may have had many thousands of people living in carefully built houses. Ask your child which features are similar to ours.

Assuming a single cause, such as invasion, ended the cities

Dramatic stories are memorable, and older books sometimes said the civilisation was destroyed by invaders. Current evidence points to a slow decline with several possible causes, and the debate continues.

What helps: Use “probably”, “may have” and “one idea is”. It is more accurate, and it practises the careful language historians use.

How to help at home

Design a grid city. Draw a street plan on squared paper with straight roads, blocks of houses, a market and a drain or river. Compare it with the plan of your own town, which probably grew less tidily.
Make a seal. Flatten a small square of modelling clay or salt dough and scratch a simple animal into it with a pencil. Press it into a second flat piece of clay to see the print. Discuss why traders needed a mark to show who owned goods.
Crack a code. Invent a script of ten symbols and write a short message in it. Ask someone to work out what it says without a key, and talk about why the Indus script is so hard to decipher.
Follow the water. On a walk, spot drains, gutters, pipes and water towers. Imagine your street without them and talk about why the Indus people thought clean water and waste removal were worth organising.

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: A significant society in world history