Balochistan - History

History

Main article: History of Balochistan See also: History of Balochistan, Pakistan and History of Iranian Balochistan

The earliest evidence of occupation in Balochistan is dated to the Paleolithic era, represented by hunting camps and lithic scatters (chipped and flaked stone tools). The earliest settled villages in Balochistan date to the ceramic Neolithic (c. 7000-6000 BCE), and included the site of Mehrgarh (located in the Kachi Plain). These villages expanded in size during the subsequent Chalcolithic, when interaction was amplified. This involved the movement of finished goods and raw materials, including chank shell, lapis lazuli, turquoise and ceramics. By 2500 BCE (the Bronze Age), Balochistan had become part of the Harappan cultural orbit, providing key resources to the expansive settlements of the Indus river basin to the east.

From the 1st century to the 3rd century CE, the region was ruled by the Pāratarājas (lit. "Pārata Kings"), a dynasty of Indo-Scythian or Indo-Parthian kings. The dynasty of the Pāratas is thought to be identical with the Pāradas of the Mahabharata, the Puranas and other vedic and Iranian sources. The Parata kings are essentially known through their coins, which typically exhibit the bust of the ruler on the obverse (with long hair within a headband), and a Zoroastrian fire altar on the reverse (usually silver coins) or Kharoshthi (copper coins). These coins are mainly found in Loralai in western Pakistan.

Herodotus in 450 BCE, describes the Paraitakenoi as a tribe ruled by Deiokes, a Persian king, in northwestern Persia (History I.101). Arrian describes how Alexander the Great encountered the Pareitakai in Bactria and Sogdiana, and had them conquered by Craterus (Anabasis Alexandrou IV). The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE) describes the territory of the Paradon beyond the Ommanitic region, on the coast of modern Balochistan.

During the Arab conquest of the Persian empire in the 8th century, Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers and theologians arrived from the rest of the Muslim world, and many settled in Balochistan and its tributary state, remaining there until the rise of the Mughals. Numerous Baloch tribes moved into the area from the west in the 11th century, to escape the Seljuk Turks. Western Balochistan was conquered by Iran in the 19th century, and its boundary was fixed in 1871. Omani influence waned in the east and Oman's last possession, Gwadar, was bought by Pakistan in 1958.