Table of Contents

1. The archaeology of early historic South Asia; 2. The environmental context; 3. The end of Harappan urbanism and its legacy; 4. Language, culture and the concept of ethnicity; 5. Dark Age or continuum? An archaeological analysis of the second urban development in South Asia; 6. The prelude to urbanisation: ethnogenesis and the rise of late Vedic chiefdoms; 7. City states of north India and Pakistan at the time of the Buddha; 8. Early cities and states beyond the Ganges valley; 9. The rise of cities in Sri Lanka; 10. The Mauryan state and empire; 11. Mauryan architecture and art; 12. Post-Mauryan states of mainland South Asia (c.185BC–AD 320); 13. The emergence of cities and states: concluding synthesis.