INDUS VALLEY RELIGION is the goddess-centered religious system of the urban civilization that emerged in the Indus Valley of western India around 2500 BCE and declined into a series of successor posturban village cultures after 1750 BCE. The antecedents of this religion lie in the village cultures of Baluchistan and Afghanistan, which were part of a larger regional cultural system in western Asia that also included the village cultures of southern Turkmenistan and the Elamite culture of southwestern Iran. Common religious patterns within this larger region continued into the early stages of urbanization in Elam, Turkmenistan, and the Indus Valley, after which the unification of the local regions and subsequent historical changes led to separation: Elam was drawn into the orbit of Sumerian and Akkadian culture; Turkmenistan was settled by new groups from the northern steppes; and Indus settlement shifted eastward into the Ganges-Yamuna Valley in...