The Harappan civilization was one of the earliest civilizations in the Indus valley area. It’s time period roughly extends from around 2500-1900 BC. The civilization owes its name to the city of Harappa, where the burial sites were found. The funerary practices of the Harappan people help us in forming and shaping ideas about their culture and conceptions of the natural, super-natural, life and death. 

There are over fifty-five burial sites in the Indus valley were found Harappa. The principal sites are Harappa Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Lothal, Rojdi, and Ropar. The burials are interpreted primarily as reflections of social structure and hierarchy. This interpretation tends to be in sync with the Tainter school of thought. The strongest evidence for this interpretation would be burial sites in Harappa, cemetery R-37 and Cemetery H. 

R-37 is the smaller site compared to cemetery H, and has about 200 burials. Archaeologists believe it was a restricted cemetery that was used by a particular group or family that lived in Harappa. The “strong genetic affinities among female population (n=84)” (ii, 263,264) in the R-37 cemetery prove that the cemetery was only used by the members of a closely related family or group. These genetic affinities that are exhibited in the female population show that the Harappan people practiced natural locality, a system in which the newlywed couple moved to live with the woman’s side of the family. Therefore clearly the R-37 cemetery proves that individuals of high class and status in a society were treated very differently and had a separate burial site.