Published on 15 Oct 2025
A team of international scientists has revised the age of South Asia’s oldest known farming settlement, Mehrgarh, from 8000 BCE to 5200 BCE.
Mehrgarh is a Neolithic archaeological site in Balochistan, Pakistan.
It lies near the Bolan Pass, west of the Indus River, between Quetta, Kalat, and Sibi.
The site was discovered in 1974 by the French Archaeological Mission, led by archaeologists Jean-François Jarrige and Catherine Jarrige.
For decades, Mehrgarh was cited as evidence that agriculture may have arisen locally, with domestication of plants like barley and animals such as zebu cattle thought to have occurred independently in South Asia.
But the new radiocarbon timeline suggests that the earliest inhabitants of Mehrgarh were already practicing a fully developed farming lifestyle, including the use of West Asian domesticates, when they arrived.
Mehrgarh
Neolithic Age
Balochistan
Pakistan
Pre-historic age
French Archaeological Mission
Archeology
Ancientt History
Early human