Abstract: This chapter focuses on the Indus Valley region and China, where complex agro-urban cultures evolved at about the same time as in the Near East. Wheat and barley farming originated in the Kachhi Plain at least 9,000 BP and then spread to the Indus Valley. By 5,500 BP, flourishing urban centres had sprung up throughout this vast region. These impressively organized cities were managed by elites without the trappings of power and warfare found in contemporary Mesopotamia. Around 4,000 BP, the Indus Valley civilization was extinguished in what may have been a climate related catastrophe. Chinese agriculture began with broomcorn millet cultivation in the northern Yellow River catchment, but early urban cultures also collapsed around 4,000 BP, possibly due to climate change. In southern China, rice farming possibly started before 10,000 BP in the Yangtze Basin, but intensive paddy cultivation was not practiced until 3,000 BP.

Keywords: Indus Valley, Harappans, climate change, Kachhi Plain, collapse, China, broomcorn millet, rice farming, Yellow River, rice,