Context: Recently, a committee has been set up by the Ministry of Culture for conducting a holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture since 12,000 years before present and its interface with other cultures of the world.

Key Points

• The committee is aimed to achieve the task in light of the findings of the Rakhigarhi, Haryana, excavations.
• The committee consisting of 16-members chaired by K N Dikshit.
• Earlier given the same mandate in 2016, the panel had failed to submit a report within its one-year deadline.
• And is now hoping to achieve the task in light of the findings of the Rakhigarhi, Haryana, excavations.

About Rakhigarhi

• Rakhigarhi, in Haryana, became an archaeological hotspot when Amarendra Nath, former director of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), undertook excavations at the site in 1997.
• The ASI team unearthed a fire altar, parts of a city wall, drainage structures as well as a hoard of semi-precious beads.
• Villagers subsequently began to see the significance of the terracotta shards that littered Rakhigarhi.
• It is a 5,000-year-old site that showcases continuity from the Harappan age to the present times. The village also has havelis that are a couple of hundred years old.
• The site is located in the Sarasvati river plain, some 27 km from the seasonal Ghaggar river.
• In May 2012, the Global Heritage Fund, declared Rakhigarhi one of the 10 most endangered heritage sites in Asia.

Additional Facts

• Other large sites of Harappan civilization on Indian sub-continent are Harappa, Mohenjodaro and Ganveriwala in Pakistan and Dholavira (Gujarat) in India.

About Harappan Civilization

• It is also known as Indus Valley Civilization.
• It flourished around 2,500 BC, in the western part of South Asia, in contemporary Pakistan and Western India.
• The Indus Valley was home to the largest of the four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China.
• In the 1920s, the Archaeological Department of India carried out excavations in the Indus valley wherein the ruins of the two old cities, viz. Mohenjodaro and Harappa were unearthed.