On the 7th of February, 2016, the Social Sciences Club at IBA hosted a lecture by Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series. Dr. Kenoyer, an archaeologist and anthropologist, is one of the most celebrated authorities with regards to the Indus Valley Civilization, and is the author of several books and articles on the topic. He has worked on several excavations at sites like Moen Jo Daro, Harappa, Balakot, etc. and is currently serving as the Director of the Centre for South Asia at the University of Wisconsin.

The premise of Dr. Kenoyer's lecture was to share new insights and findings regarding the Civilization, especially in the area of trade, which, according to archaeological evidence, carried the influence of the Civilization as far as Mesopotamia. He went on to reveal that unlike what is popularly known about the Indus Valley Civilization, it was not limited to areas of Sindh and lower Punjab in Pakistan, but stretched to areas of Afghanistan in the North, the coasts of Baluchistan in the South, Oman in the West, and Katch in the East.

One of the things that made the Indus Valley Civilization unique, Dr. Kenoyer identified, was that it had no standing military. Militaries have historically been important when it comes to the spread of civilizations and spread of ideas, but the fact that the Indus Valley was able to stretch so far and wide, without the use of military force, says volumes about the importance of trade in the transmission of ideas, and the subsequent assimilation of large numbers of people in to those ideas.

When asked the inevitable question of why archaeology is important to the common man, Dr. Kenoyer replied humorously, "What's the difference between a jackal and a human being? The jackal doesn't know its father's name". Having a history and placing ourselves within that history is what makes us human, Dr. Kenoyer asserted heartily. His lecture was well-received by the faculty and the student-body at IBA. His impeccable command over Urdu may have had something to do with it, but his work certainly commanded the reception it received.