By Devin Powell
Climate change may have determined the fate of the ancient world’s most expansive civilization. A new study suggests that the waning of monsoons spurred both the rise and fall of the Harappans, who flourished in the floodplains of the Indus Valley thousands of years ago.
Small floods driven by the rains nourished the crops of early cities but proved unreliable generations later, researchers report online the week of May 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.