{
  "author": "ChronologiaOS editorial guides",
  "date": "2026-10-09",
  "department": "Cities & Civilizations",
  "department_id": "CITIES",
  "epistemic_label": "Source guide",
  "epistemic_status": "SOURCE_GUIDE",
  "period": "c. 5200\u20134700 BCE (Neolithic cemetery, 2025 model)",
  "place": "Kachi plain, Balochistan, Pakistan",
  "public_sources": [
    {
      "publisher": "Scientific Reports",
      "title": "New radiocarbon dates of human tooth enamel reveal a late appearance of farming life in the Indus Valley",
      "type": "Peer-reviewed article",
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-92621-5"
    }
  ],
  "publication_state": "PUBLIC",
  "read_time": "4 min read",
  "sections": [
    {
      "body": "A 2025 study in Scientific Reports reports new radiocarbon dates on human tooth enamel from the Neolithic cemetery at Mehrgarh. Its modeled range places the cemetery's start around 5200 to 4900 cal BCE and its end around 4770 to 4680 cal BCE, substantially later than the eighth-to-seventh-millennium chronology found in older excavation literature.",
      "heading": "Start with the new evidence",
      "source": 0
    },
    {
      "body": "The research record stores this as a chronology dispute: the legacy model and the new model each keep their method, samples, and publication provenance. The new dates revise the cemetery chronology; the record cautions against generalizing them automatically to every occupation layer or every claim about the wider site.",
      "heading": "Keep both models visible"
    },
    {
      "body": "When a date moves, ask what exactly was dated. Enamel from burials dates the people in the cemetery. It does not by itself date the earliest fields, houses, or craft activity. Match each claim to its sample.",
      "heading": "Try the research habit"
    },
    {
      "body": "If this revision holds, which other regional dates were calibrated against the old Mehrgarh chronology, and how would you check them?",
      "heading": "A question to carry forward"
    }
  ],
  "short_title": "What happens when new dates arrive?",
  "slug": "mehrgarh-when-a-date-moves-by-two-thousand-years",
  "summary": "Watch a chronology dispute in progress: older literature placed Mehrgarh's Neolithic in the eighth millennium BCE, and direct radiocarbon dates published in 2025 propose a much later start.",
  "tags": [
    "Mehrgarh",
    "Radiocarbon",
    "Neolithic",
    "Chronology dispute"
  ],
  "title": "Mehrgarh: when a date moves by two thousand years."
}