Context: 

Excavation made at a burial site, spread over 16 hectares in a Kutch village- Khetia, shows that it can be considered as the largest pre-urban Harappan cemetery. 

• Since 2018, a multi-disciplinary international team of archeologists has discovered 500 graves and excavated 197 of those here.

About the news:

• Findings of the excavation: A shell bangle, pottery shards, stones blades, even human skeletal remains.
• It is established that the cemetery, believed to be 5,000 years old, belonged to the ‘pre-urban’ phase of the Harappan civilisation.
• Researchers are looking for clues to see if the burial ground — arguably the largest such cemetery — could have served a big human settlement in the vicinity or if it was a common facility for a cluster of smaller settlements.
• The findings at the burial site are consistent with its pre-urban Harappan status.
• The Khatiya puzzle: It is yet to be answered who are the people whose remains were interred in these graves and where did they come from.
  • Being a pre-urban Harappan cemetery, there is a possibility that either there was a big settlement in Khatiya or there were smaller settlements around Khatiya and the cemetery was a common burial ground for them

Phases of the Harappan civilisation:

• The Harappan civilisation, one of the oldest in the world, is said to have thrived along the banks of river Indus from around 5,000 BC to 1,000 BC. 
• Pre-urban Harappan phase:  Between 5,000 BC to 2,600 BC 
• Urban Harappan phase:  Between 2,600 BC and 1,900 BC.
• Post-urban Harappan period: Between 1,900 BC to 1,000 BC. From here on, civilization declines.

News Source: Indian Express