• Harappa is anarchaeological site in Punjab, eastern Pakistan. The site of the ancient city contains the ruins of a Bronze Age fortified city, which was part of the Cemetery H culture and the Indus Valley Civilization.
• As per archaeological convention of naming a previously unknown civilization by its first excavated site, the Indus Valley Civilization is also called the Harappan Civilization.
• The Indus Valley Civilization (also known as the Harappan culture) has its earliest roots in cultures such as that of Mehrgarh, approximately 6000 BCE.
• The two greatest cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, emerged 2600 BCE along the Indus River valley in Punjab and Sindh.
• The civilization, with a writing system, urban centers, and diversified social and economic system.

Culture and economy:

• Indus Valley civilization was mainly an urban culture sustained by surplus agricultural production and commerce, the latter including trade with Sumer in southern Mesopotamia. Both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are generally characterized as having differentiated living quarters, flat-roofed brick houses, and fortified administrative or religious centers. Although such similarities have given rise to arguments for the existence of a standardized system of urban layout and planning, the similarities are largely due to the presence of a semi-orthogonal type of civic layout, and a comparison of the layouts of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa shows that they are in fact, arranged in a quite dissimilar fashion.
• The chart weights and measures of the Indus Valley Civilization were highly standardized, and conform to a set scale of gradations. Distinctive seals were used, among other applications, perhaps for identification of property and shipment of goods. Although copper and bronze were in use, iron was not yet employed.
• Cotton was woven and dyed for clothing; wheat, rice, and a variety of vegetables and fruits were cultivated; and a number of animals, including the humped bull, were domesticated, as well as fowl for fighting.
• Wheel-made pottery—some of it adorned with animal and geometric motifs—has been found in profusion at all the major Indus sites. A centralized administration for each city, though not the whole civilization, has been inferred from the revealed cultural uniformity; however, it remains uncertain whether authority lay with a commercial oligarchy.
• What is clear is that Harappan society was not entirely peaceful, with the human skeletal remains demonstrating some of the highest rates of injury (15.5%) found in South Asian prehistory. Paleopathological analysis demonstrated that leprosy and tuberculosis were present at Harappa, with the highest prevalence of both disease and trauma present in the skeletons. Furthermore, rates of cranio-facial trauma and infection increased through time, demonstrating that the civilization collapsed amid illness and injury. The bioarchaeologists who examined the remains have suggested that the combined evidence for differences in mortuary treatment and epidemiology indicate that some individuals and communities at Harappa were excluded from access to basic resources like health and safety, a basic feature of hierarchical societies world-wide.

• The excavators of the site have proposed the following chronology of Harappa’s occupation:

1. Ravi Aspect of the Hakra phase, 3300 – 2800 BC.
2. Kot Dijian (Early Harappan) phase, 2800 – 2600 BC.
3. Harappan Phase, c. 2600 – 1900 BC.
4. Transitional Phase, c. 1900 – 1800 BC.
5. Late Harappan Phase, c. 1800 – 1300 BC.

• By far the most exquisite and obscure artifacts unearthed to date are the small, square steatite (soapstone) seals engraved with human or animal motifs. A large number of seals have been found at such sites as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Many bear pictographic inscriptions generally thought to be a form of writing or script. These signs remain undeciphered. It is also unknown if they reflect proto-Dravidian or other non-Vedic language.
• Suggested earliest writing: Clay and stone tablets unearthed at Harappa, which were carbon dated 3300–3200 BCE., contain trident-shaped and plant-like markings. They have suggested as possibly the earliest writings anywhere in the world. This primitive writing is placed slightly earlier than primitive writings of the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, dated 3100 BCE. These markings have similarities to what later became Indus Script. This discovery also suggests that the earliest writings by mankind developed independently in three places (Harappa, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt) between 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE.
• The termination of the Harappan tradition at Harappa falls between 1900 and 1500 BCE.
• Mohenjo-daro is another major city of the same period, located in Sindh province of Pakistan. One of its most well-known structures is the Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro.
• Dholavira is another ancient town belonging to Indus Valley Civilisation, established in India. The Harappans used roughly the same size bricks and weights as were used in other Indus cities, such as Mohenjo Daro and Dholavira. These cities were well planned with wide streets, public and private wells, drains, bathing platforms and reservoirs.

(8) Hastinapur (Location near Delhi)

The first reference to Hastinapur in Puranas comes as the capital of Bharata. It is an important site of later Vedic times.It was capital of Kurus.

Excavation at Hastinapur was carried out in the early 1950s to find out the stratigraphic position of Painted Grey Ware.

The Painted Grey Ware culture is an Iron Age culture of the Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley, lasting from roughly 1200 BCE to 600 BCE. It was succeeded by Northern Black Polished Ware.

(9) Hathigumpha 

(10) Hathnora

• Fossil site.
• A skull fragment of hominid found in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley in central India indicate that India might have been inhabited in the Middle Pleistocene era around 250,000 years ago.

Evolution of Man
First Fossile — Male -Ramapithecus Female – Shivapithecus (10-14 million years ago) These fossils were found in Shivalik and Salt range Homoerectus: Found in Hathnora (Lower Palaeolithic) 10 lakh B.C. Homo sapiens : Found in Upper Palaeolithic Regions

(11) Hiregudda

• In Sanganakallu-Kupgal, the dolerite trap that runs through the hill locally known as Hiregudda is associated along its length with various rock art sites.
• Sanganakallu belongs to Neolithic period (3000 BC – beginning of Christian era), complex of hills (peacock hills) is 8 km from Bellary, it is One of the earliest village settlements in South India.Different types of burial structures have been found.
• At Sanganakallu the people who settled were the earliest agriculturists, they cultivated small millets and pulses, they kept sheep, cattle, they had separate areas for dumping dung (ash mounds), has the earliest houses of mud and stone.
• Manufacture stone tools on a large scale shows the rich Neolithic culture and skills.
• The Neolithic rock art can be seen on boulders.Many of the motifs on the rocks are of cattle. Some are of human-like figures, either on their own or accompanied by cattle. Some of these are in chains or with bows and arrows.

(12) Hisar 

• Archeological excavations at nearby locations of Rakhigarhi, Siswal and Lohari Ragho suggest the presence of human habitation from pre-Harappan period.
• Hisar was founded in 1354 AD, as ‘Hisar-e-Firoza‘ by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi from 1351 to 1388. He built a walled fort with four gates which were subsequently named as the Delhi Gate and Mori Gate to the east, the Nagori Gate to the south and Talaqi Gate to the west. In the middle of the fort stood the Firoz Shah Palace. The complex had different buildings like Baradari, Lat ki Masjid, Diwan-e-Aam and Shahi Darwaza.Near to the palace was the Gujri Mahal built by the emperor for his wife Gujri.
• Timur invaded the city in 1398 AD and his soldiers set fire to the fort.
• The city later come under the rule of Sayyid dynasty and Lodi dynasty before Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi in the first battle of Panipat

(13) Hospet / Hosapete

• Hospet or Hosapete, is a city in Bellary District in central Karnataka, India. It is on the Tungabhadra River, 12 km from Hampi, the World Heritage site consisting of the ruins of the medieval city of Vijayanagara.
• The city was built by Krishna Deva Raya in 1520 AD, one of the rulers of Vijayanagara

(14) Hulas

• Hulas, in the Saharanpur district of UP, is a late Indus Valley Civilization archeological site.
• Hulas is one of the sites belonging to Chalcolithic Culture Phase in Doab which are located mostly along the higher banks of tributaries of Yamuna. Most of these settlements are small and three of these sites are excavated (Hulas, Alamgirpur and Bargaon). Occupation of this late Harappan site goes back to 2000 BC.
• Architecture: Rectangular mud structures with rammed floors, post-holes and hearths were identified in the earliest phase. In the Middle phase, clusters of two or three circular storage bin–type structures were found inside some of rectangular mud houses. Five round furnaces were found in some of the structures belonging to final phase.
• Artefacts found: Hand made and wheel made pottery with geometric or naturalistic designs painted in black, chert blades, bone points etc.Terrecotta inscribed sealing.
• Agricultural activity: Horse gram, Cow pea, walnuts, oats, lintel, pea, chickpea, ragi, rice (both wild and cultivated variety), Fruits of pipal tree

(15) Hyderabad

• Established in 1591 by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, Hyderabad remained under the rule of the Qutb Shahi dynasty for nearly a century before the Mughals captured the region. In 1724, Mughal viceroy Asif Jah I declared his sovereignty and created his own dynasty, also known as the Nizams of Hyderabad.