The cities of the Indus civilization were expansive and planned with large-scale architecture and sophisticated Bronze Age technologies. Despite these hallmarks of social complexity, the Indus lacks clear evidence for elaborate tombs, individual-aggrandizing monuments, large temples, and palaces. Its first excavators suggested that the Indus civilization was far more egalitarian than other early complex societies, and after nearly a century of investigation, clear evidence for a ruling class of managerial elites has yet to materialize. The conspicuous lack of political and economic inequality noted by Mohenjo-daro’s initial excavators was basically correct. This is not because the Indus civilization was not a complex society, rather, it is because there are common assumptions about distributions of wealth, hierarchies of power, specialization, and urbanism in the past that are simply incorrect. The Indus civilization reveals that a ruling class is not a prerequisite for social complexity.

印度河文明的城市面积广阔，规划有大规模的建筑和先进的青铜时代技术。尽管有这些社会复杂性的标志，但印度河缺乏精致的坟墓、个人夸大的纪念碑、大型寺庙和宫殿的明确证据。它的第一批挖掘者表明，印度河文明比其他早期复杂社会更加平等，经过近一个世纪的调查，管理精英统治阶级的明确证据尚未出现。摩亨佐·达罗最初的挖掘者所指出的明显缺乏政治和经济不平等的观点基本上是正确的。这并不是因为印度河文明不是一个复杂的社会，而是因为过去关于财富分配、权力等级、专业化和城市化的普遍假设根本就是错误的。印度河文明表明，统治阶级并不是社会复杂性的先决条件。