CHAPTER XVI 
OTHER CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION 
Farty developments of civilized life did not take place 
only in the lands around the eastern end of the Medi- 
terranean Sea. Certain fertile river valleys of India and 
China also played a part in the same great movement. 
These areas shared with the former the fundamental ele- 
ments upon which their progress was based, including 
domestic animals, cereals, wheeled vehicles, the plow, and 
bronze. 
ANCIENT INDIA 
Seas and the loftiest mountatn ranges on earth mark 
India sharply off from the rest of Asia and the world in 
general. The northwestern corner has proved most often 
the contact point with the outside world. Here, in the 
regions on both sides of the Indus River, as recent excava- 
tions have shown, there had grown up, apparently before 
3000 B. c., a settled agricultural civilization closely re- 
sembling that of ancient Babylonia, with which, indeed, 
we know that it had at least trade relations. The men of 
this area used both stone and copper implements, the latter 
mostly hammered into shape but occasionally cast. They 
knew bronze though it was scarce, perhaps because the tin 
necessary to make it was hard to get. Also, they used 
silver, gold, and lead. That they were peaceful is sug- 
gested by the fact that few weapons have been found. 
They made both sun-dried and baked bricks and built 
regular towns, with houses, temples, and palaces. They 
manufactured pottery, plain, painted, and even blue- 
glazed, and they engraved seals on hard stone. 
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