Timeline
Every guide, in its time.
Read across eras and regions, then open a guide to see the sources behind its dates. A shared date is a question to investigate, not evidence of contact.
5 of 57 guides in South Asia
Before 5000 BCE 1
- 5200–4700 BCE
What happens when new dates arrive?
Mehrgarh: when a date moves by two thousand years.
Kachi plain, Balochistan, Pakistan · South Asia · Early cities
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.
3000–1000 BCE 3
- 2600–1900 BCE
How do you date a city without a king list?
The Indus cities: an era of integration.
Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra basins, Pakistan and India · South Asia · Early cities
Explore the Mature Harappan phase of the Indus civilization and see how archaeologists build a chronology from artifact sequences and radiocarbon dates rather than royal names.
- 2600–1900 BCE
Can you study a script you cannot read?
Indus inscriptions: a function before a reading.
Indus civilization sites, Pakistan and India · South Asia · Writing & languages
The Indus script remains undeciphered. See how a 2023 study argues for what the short inscriptions were used for, and why that is a different question from what they say.
- 1500–1000 BCE
How old is a text that was not written down?
The Rig Veda: dating a tradition that was spoken first.
Northwestern South Asia · South Asia · Writing & languages
The Rig Veda was composed orally and copied much later. Learn to keep four different dates apart: sacred chronology, estimated composition, oral transmission, and surviving manuscripts.
1–500 CE 1
- 499 CE
Why keep the composition date apart from the manuscripts?
The Āryabhaṭīya: dating a work and its witnesses.
South Asia · South Asia · Astronomy & calendars
The Āryabhaṭīya is traditionally dated to 499 CE. See how its critical edition lets the research record keep the composition, the author, and each surviving manuscript as separate objects.
Keep the habit
Dates are ranges. Read them that way.
Each guide names its period, its place, and the records that support them.
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