Harappan Civilization is well known for highly sophisticated urban society, having been flourished in extensive regions of northwestern part of Pakistan and northeastern part of Afghanistan as its heyday around 4500 years ago. Most archaeologists agree on the periodization of this civilization as three different phases (Early, Mature and Late), which represent its cultural process of origin, development and decline. From the Harappan sites, one can note that there were about more than fifty burial sites discovered so far related with the civilization. In this article, we are trying to introduce the brief picture of the Harappan burials from the archaeological as well as anthropological perspectives.
Afghanistan ; Anthropology ; Archaeology ; Burial* ; Civilization* ; Humans ; India* ; Pakistan

The Harappan Civilization, one of the earliest complex societies in the world, flourished on the Indian subcontinent. Although many additional Harappan settlements and cemeteries have been discovered and investigated, no coupled burials at Harappan cemeteries have been reported to date. In 2013–2016, we excavated the cemetery of the Rakhigarhi site (Haryana), the largest city of the Harappan Civilization. At the site, we found a grave that turned out to be a coupled (joint) burial of the primary type. This report is the first anthropologically confirmed case of coupled burial from a Harappan cemetery.
Anthropology ; Burial ; Cemeteries* ; Civilization*