History

Mehrgarh was discovered and excavated beginning in 1974 by Jean-François Jarrige and a team from the French Archaeological Mission in Pakistan, producing a stratigraphic sequence stretching over 4,500 years of continuous occupation. The site’s importance lies in establishing that South Asian civilisation developed independently and progressively from a local Neolithic base, not as a transplant from Mesopotamia or Central Asia — it represents an indigenous origin point for the agricultural and artistic traditions that reached their greatest expression in the Indus Valley Civilisation of 2600-1900 BC.

The earliest inhabitants (Period I, c. 7000-5500 BC) lived in mud-brick rectangular houses, made baskets, and buried their dead with grave goods including turquoise and shell beads and goat meat provisions. The discovery of drilled teeth in individuals from this period constituted one of the most surprising finds in South Asian archaeology: the holes, made with small flint drill bits, appear to have been created to relieve dental decay, predating the next known intentional dental intervention by approximately 4,500 years. Later periods show increasing architectural complexity, the development of wheel-thrown pottery, copper metallurgy, and long-distance trade connections with Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.