New Evidence Dates Ancient Indus Valley City Mohenjo-daro to 3300 BC

Archaeological ruins astatine Mohenjo-Daro. Credit: Saqib Qayyum / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Archaeologists person traced the origins of Mohenjo-daro, a large past metropolis successful the Indus Valley, backmost to astir 3300 BC, pushing its documented past respective centuries further than earlier estimates. The results situation the wide held presumption that the metropolis appeared abruptly astir 2600 BC and alternatively constituent to a slow, gradual process of municipality development.

The conclusions stem from c dating carried retired during 2025 and 2026 fieldwork astatine the site, which sits successful Pakistan’s Sindh state adjacent the Larkana territory on the Indus River.

At its peak, the metropolis is believed to person housed arsenic galore arsenic 40,000 residents, ranking it among the astir populated municipality centers of the Bronze Age alongside comparable cities successful past Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Mohenjo-daro excavation challenges long-held Indus Valley timeline

A probe squad headed by Dr. Asma Ibrahim, Ali Lashari, and Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer examined a ample mudbrick operation connected the occidental broadside of the Stupa Mound. The operation had been excavated decades earlier by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who reported successful 1950 that it was built arsenic a flood barrier.

Five caller c samples and a stratigraphic reappraisal led the existent squad to a antithetic conclusion, identifying the operation arsenic a metropolis partition built successful stages and reinforced implicit time.

Material from the deepest sections dates its archetypal operation signifier to betwixt 2700 and 2600 BC, toward the adjacent of the Early Harappan period, besides known arsenic the Kot Diji phase.

US archaelogist Dr Jonathan Mark Kenoyer on broadside different experts astatine the Mohenjo Daro excavation site. pic.twitter.com/g5eRpbaO7Q

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) April 3, 2026

Soil cores taken from beneath the partition contained Kot Diji-style pottery, indicating that radical were already surviving astatine the determination earlier the partition was raised. The squad concluded that Mohenjo-daro evolved from a pre-existing colony alternatively than being founded during the Mature Harappan phase.

Soil cores beneath the partition corroborate pre-existing settlement

Similar grounds has emerged astatine Harappa, different important metropolis successful the Indus Valley, wherever comparable early settlement layers and antiaircraft structures person been documented.

The wall’s precocious sections beryllium to the Mature Harappan play aft 2600 BC, erstwhile the metropolis expanded astir broadly. Records amusement the operation was actively maintained done 2200 BC astatine a minimum, reflecting sustained municipality readying implicit generations.

Researchers program to representation the wall’s implicit way and hunt for gateways that could clarify however residents managed movement, commerce, and extortion wrong the city.

Kushan coins and earlier finds circular retired the site’s record

The tract has besides yielded finds from aboriginal centuries. In 2023, workers adjacent the Stupa uncovered respective 100 coins from the Kushan period, spanning astir the 2nd to 5th centuries AD.

The coins, totaling astir 5.5 kilograms (about 12 pounds), had bonded unneurotic aft agelong burial. Prior excavations successful the 1920s and 1930s brought up thousands of coins and objects present distributed among assorted depository holdings.