How we know

Evidence and its gaps.

Sources

Archaeology recovers what survives, texts record what someone chose to write, and both favour durable materials and powerful people. Ordinary life is inferred from rubbish, tools and houses.

Radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology anchor chronologies.
Some scripts, including the Indus one, remain undeciphered.

Reading critically

Royal inscriptions are propaganda, and later chroniclers wrote with their own aims. Interpretations shift as new sites are excavated and old finds are re-examined.