[1] Early surveys by Sir Aurel Stein in Balochistan led to the discovery of numerous prehistoric sites of unknown association.
The term Early Harappan was coined by M. R. Mughal in his dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania which provided a synthesis of his many surveys and studies throughout Pakistan.
"[3] According to Coningham and Young, it was "cemented [...] in common use" due to "the highly influential British archaeologists Raymond and Bridget Allchin [who] used similar subdivisions in their work.
Although this system is very useful for its original purpose of organizing museum collections, it is unable to fully characterize the dynamic and fluid nature of human inter-settlement relationships.
To address this issue, archaeologists Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips developed a system based on Culture-Historical Integration, or a heuristic concept for describing the distribution of "relatedness" across time and space.
[11] These concepts were later adapted by Jim G. Shaffer and Diane Liechtenstein as a potential solution to a similar problem in the Greater Indus Valley.
Based on both his extensive work in the field and these ethnographic observations, Shaffer developed a series of important critiques of archaeological theory.
[12] As a result of these critiques, Shaffer adapted the system developed by Willey and Phillips into one suitable for the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The Localisation Era comprises several phases:[13] Gregory Possehl includes the Neolithic stage in his periodisation, using the term Indus Age for this broader timespan,[4] Possehl arranged archaeological phases into a seven-stage sequence:[2] According to Coningham & Young, Possehl's mixture of older periodisation (Mature Harappan), artefact-based descriptive classifications (Early Iron Age), and socio-economic processes (Developed Village Farming Communities) is not unique and others, such as Singh (2008), have presented similar categories which treat the Indus Valley and the Early Historic Traditions in very different ways and thus reinforce established divisions which prevent easy comparative discussion.
[19][2] Rao, who excavated Bhirrana, claims to have found pre-Harappan Hakra Ware in its oldest layers, dated at the 8th-7th millennium BCE.
[27] This proposal is supported by Sarkar et al. (2016), co-authored by Rao, who also refer to a proposal by Possehl, and various radiocarbon dates from other sites, though giving 800 BCE as the enddate for the Mature Harappan phase:[22][note 3] Rao 2005 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRao2005 (help), and as summarized by Dikshit 2013, compares as follows with the conventional datings, and Shaffer (Eras).
[1][16] Jonathan M. Kenoyer, and Coningham & Young, provide an overview of developmental phases of India in which the Indus Valley Civilisation and the Early Historic Period are combined.
[31][16] The post-Harappan phase shows renewed regionalisation, culminating in the integration of the Second Urbanisation of the Early Historic Period, starting ca.