· Allchin, Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilization: India and Pakistan before 500 BC , Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968.
A significantly thorough treatment of the archeological "record" of the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization. The text seems to juxtapose the developments of these people with other cultures which preceded, succeeded or coincided with them. There is a significant amount of interpretation present within the text as the authors begin to draw conclusions with respect to later Indian religious movements.
· Basham, A.L., The Wonder That Was India, Grove Press, New York, 1959
A classic work, not without problems, on the development of Indian Culture. It focuses upon the roots of Indian culture as they stemmed from the Indus civilization. It moves from these prehistoric times to 1000 AD.
· Dales, George F., "The Decline of the Harappans," in Old World Archeology: Foundations of Civilization; Readings from Scientific America, ed. C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1972.
The major thesis of this work is to counter an entrenched theory which stated that Harappan culture ended abruptly with the invasion of the Aryans. Dales, however, offers evidence of major natural disasters (tectonic activity, flooding, etc.) which seems to explain better, at least for him, the end of the Harappan civilization and the shifting of major urban centers in prehistoric India.
· Gordon, D.C., The Prehistoric Background of Indian Culture, N.M. Tripathi, Bombay, 1958.
A fairly technical manual which organizes much of the archeological remains of the Indus valley civilization. Gordon also offers a useful analysis of these materials.
· Marshall, Sir John, Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization, 3 Vols. Arthur Probsthain, London, 1931.
A classic work on the Indus Valley civilizations. This text is primarily an account of the excavations at Mohenjo-Daro between 1922 and 1927 conducted by the Indian government. This is the most complete work on the subject and is still a framework which many scholars refer to.
· Piggott, Stuart, Prehistoric India, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1961
A useful and less technical elucidation of the Early Stone Age and Bronze Age cultures which inhabited western India. The text includes a description of the coming of the Aryans (an interpretation). I believe that this theory may have been fairly prominent in the past; however, the text was not even sited in a recent bibliography on the "indigenous Aryan" controversy.
· Rapson, E.J. Ed., The Cambridge History of India 6 Vol., S. Chand and Co., Delhi, 1962.
Volume one of this useful collection if entitled Ancient India and is a good introduction to the history of India up to the first century AD. The text is composed of a collection of scholarly articles written by various western and Indian scholars and represent a number of authoritative perspectives on numerous topics. Each essay also includes a useful bibliography.
· Srinivasan, Doris, "The So-called Proto-Siva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro. An Iconographic Assessment." Archives of Asian Art, 29 (1975-1976): 47-58.
This is a study of what seems to be the most important archeological find in the Mohenjo-Daro remains for religious studies scholars. The article places this seal with other contemporary Indus sites and attempts to reinterpret the seal. There is also a very useful bibliography for further study.
· Wheeler, Sir Mortimer, The Indus Civilization, Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1960.
This is primarily a description and interpretation of many of the archeological finds at Indus and pre-Indus sites.
· Wheeler, Sir Mortimer, Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond, Mcgraw-hill, 1966.
This text, which is less technical than the previously mentioned work contains additional material on post-Indus developments. In addition, there are many excellent pictures of both the sites and the artifacts.