Prehistoric River Saraswati, Western India

Geological Appraisal and Social Aspects

verfasst von: K.S. Valdiya

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Society of Earth Scientists Series

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

This book portrays the Himalayan-born River Saraswati, a legendary river that was the lifeline of a progressive and vibrant society for more than three thousand years. Written in simple language and richly illustrated, it highlights the events that resulted in the robbing of the Saraswati of its water and the end of a wonderful culture. The author weaves a geological narrative out of a mass of data generated by explorers, archaeologists, sedimentologists, geohydrologist, seismologists and remote-sensing specialists. The story explains how a great Himalayan river disappeared and how the Harappan Civilization vanished from the banks of the river Saraswati more than three and half thousand years ago in the wake of tectonic upheavals in the foothills of the Himalaya at a time when the rainfall had drastically declined. And it reveals that nowadays the Saraswati is an extraordinary wide water-less channel coursing through the vast but dry floodplain in western India.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Mighty Tempestuous River

Abstract

A look at the map of the Indo-Gangetic Plains would make it quite obvious that a vast expanse of the land between the Yamunā and Satluj rivers is a parched realm of sandy plain bereft of the bounty of rivers (Fig. 1.1). In this riverless land the annual rainfall is no more than 15–50 cm. Compounding the problem of pervasive aridity, droughts visit the region at an interval of 2–5 years.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 2. Geomorphological Layout of the Saraswatī Land

Abstract

The drainage of the two rivers that once constituted the two branches of the legendary Saraswatī River of prehistoric antiquity encompassed three radically different physiographic–geological provinces.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 3. Structural Framework and Tectonics of the Saraswatī Basin

Abstract

The Tamasā (Tons) branch of the Saraswatī, springing from the Har-ki-dūn glacier in the Great Himālaya subprovince (Plate 2.4), crosses three major thrust zones—and three litho-tectonically distinctive and phyisographically contrasted terranes—before descending onto the plains in southwestern Uttarākhand.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 4. Portrayal, Identification and Delineation of the River Saraswatī

Abstract

The Saraswatī was a highly venerated river in the times it watered the vast expanse of the land known as Saptasindhav—the land of seven rivers (Rigved, 8.24.27) namely Saraswatī, Parushnī, Vipāsh, Asiknī, Vitastā, Sindhu and Kumbhā. Presently known as the Ghagghar, the Beās, the Rāvi, the Chenāb, the Jhelam, the Indus and the Kābul rivers respectively, these seven rivers held sway over the larger part of northwestern India.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 5. Sediments Deposited by the River Saraswatī

Abstract

Emerging in the interior of the Himālaya and flowing through four lithotectonically contrasted and geomorphologically distinctive subprovinces or terranes of the northern orogenic (Himālayan) belt, as already pointed out (Fig. 3.1, Plate 2.1), the two branches of the Saraswatī with their tributaries brought (and continue to bring) enormous quantities of eroded materials and deposited them in multiple channels and in the floodplain.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 6. Peopling of the Saraswatī Land

Abstract

The hilly and rocky terrains in the Saraswatī domain and the hill ranges of the Arāvali and the Himālaya that enclose it, are dotted with settlements of the people who made and used tools of stones and minerals. The makers of these implements were hunters and gatherers who had found water and raw material for making their stone artefacts in and around the Sarawatī land.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 7. Decline and Demise of Saraswatī River

Abstract

A comprehensive sedimentological study carried out in the middle reaches of the Ghagghar between Tohana and Sirsā by Courty (1995) unfolded a history of progressive decline in discharge and reduction of sediment deposition in the period 7000–5000 yr B.P.

K. S. Valdiya

Chapter 8. Return and Revival of the Saraswatī

Abstract

The Saraswatī River has returned to quite some parts of the land it watered before and during the Harappan times. But the courses of both the eastern branch (Tamasā/Tons) and the western branch (Shatadru/Satluj) are now quite different not necessarily through the paleochannels.

K. S. Valdiya

Backmatter

Titel: Prehistoric River Saraswati, Western India
verfasst von: K.S. Valdiya
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-44224-2
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-44223-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44224-2