Pakistani History/Prehistory/Iron Age/Vedic period

In the history of South Asia, the Vedic period (or the Vedic age; ca. 1500–500 BCE) was the period during which the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, were composed.

During the early part of the Vedic period, the Indo-Aryans settled into northern India, bringing with them their specific religious traditions. The associated culture (sometimes referred to as Vedic civilization) was initially a tribal, pastoral society centred in the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent (which is now Pakistan); it spread after 1200 BCE to the Ganges Plain, as it was shaped by increasing settled agriculture, a hierarchy of four social classes, and the emergence of monarchical, state-level polities.