Robin Coningham is UNESCO Chair in Archaeological Ethics and Practice in Cultural Heritage at the University of Durham. He has participated in over fifteen UNESCO missions and currently co-directs UNESCO's excavations in Nepal at Tilaurakot and Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha. He has published eight books and over eighty papers and chapters. Ruth Young is Senior Lecturer at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. She has published in journals such as Antiquity, the International Journal of Heritage Studies, the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, World Archaeology and many others. She is also writing a monograph on her work in northern Pakistan.

• Part I. The Context: 1. Introduction and definitions; 2. Environment and culture: South Asia's environmental, linguistic and religious patterns; 3. Histories of South Asian archaeology; Part II. The Indus Valley Tradition c.6500–1900 BCE: 4. Food producers: multiple Neolithics (c.6500–2000 BCE); 5. Regionalisation and differentiated communities (c.5000–2600 BCE); 6. An era of integration: the Indus civilisation (c.2600–1900 BCE); 7. Localisation: transformations of a system (c.1900–1200 BCE); Part III. The Early Historic Tradition (c.1900–200 BCE): 8. South Asia: transitions and continuities (c.1900–1200 BCE); 9. The re-emergence of regional differentiation (c.1200–600 BCE); 10. Reintegration: towards an early historic world (c.600–250 BCE); 11. The Mauryans and the Asokan ideal (c.321–185 BCE); Part IV. Conclusions: 12. Conclusions and challenges.

'This new and thorough survey of the vast Indian subcontinent, from before the first urban civilization of the Indus to the time of Ashoka and the Mauryan Empire in the third century BCE, brings to bear contemporary archaeological questions and methods in a perceptive way. It is a valuable introduction to one of the major fields of world archaeology.' Colin Renfrew, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge