I've been reading a lot about ancient India (the Vedic period

We have proof pf cities and dams even in Sri Lanka dating as far back as 900-700 BC, I dont Know about the rest of india

>>2102926
because those cities continued to be inhabited for long stretches of time. The IVC was abandoned because of extant climatic changes that were unearthed in the 19th century later.
meanwhile cities on the indogangetic plain continued to be settlements where people continued to live. Pataliputra for example is still the capital of Bihar, and goes by the name of Patna.

>>2102980
Pataliputra was a Mauryan city and so post-dates the Vedic period. This is also apparent in its ruins that have been excavated which show clear Greek and Persian influence.

Material evidences may be scant but we know from a lot of linguistic evidence and genetic evidence that Indo-Europeans entered the subcontinent between 2000 and 1000 BCE. A lot of Indians don't even believe in the Indo-European migrations from Central Asia to India because the archaeological evidence is so lacking in showing any kind of mass movement of people into North India around that time. So in absence of material evidence we have to rely on the next best set of sources - the texts. They're not obviously rigorous historical documents but describe the culture and way of life of what were essentially pastoral people.

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>>2102926
There's no such thing as 'Vedic civilization', but you're also putting the rise of Indian civilization way too late with the 'post-Greek contact Mauryan Empire'.

The Vedic period is linked with the Painted Grey Ware culture of northern India, from 1200-600 BC, and it was a culture of relatively small tribes and chiefdoms without towns or cities, but with a highly developed oral tradition. They gradually coalesced into larger polities towards the end of this period.

Civilization, in the sense of states and cities, arose around 600 BC which is also when Hinduism really becomes an organised religion and the sramanic movement of gives rise to the likes of Buddhism and Jainism. Large kingdoms and empires called the Mahajanapadas arose, which are associated with the Northern Black Polished Ware culture. There's not much impressive physical evidence from this period because everything was built in wood and mudbrick; stone monuments and inscriptions don't appear until the Mauryan period (due to Achemenid, not Greek, influence).

There were large cities, but all that's left behind today are buried mudbrick foundations and postholes and most are also now buried under modern cities, so it's hard to archaeologically investigate them, but we get an impression of what they looked like in later art and architecture; pic related is a reconstruction based on reliefs from the 1st century AD, which is obviously much later than the period we're talking about but at least gives an impression of the kind of architecture we're talking about.

Plenty of incipient civilizations didn't leave behind impressive architecture (Shang China, Ife, the Olmecs) or much art (Carthage, Aksum), early India's just more elusive because they didn't have either. But of course they still had one of the most dynamic intellectual traditions in the world in this period, matching the contemporary fluorescence of Chinese and Greek philosophy, which I'd say is more impressive than art and monuments.

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>>2104035
Also ignore the date on the picture, I don't know why it says 500 BC when it's based on 1st century reliefs. It's also probably exaggerating the density of the buildings, but the architecture itself is pretty accurate.

Also since you mentioned weapons in the OP, here's a Vedic spearhead.

>>2104047
One more thing I forgot to mention is that India's first coinage appears in this period, which is pretty indicative of an urban society and a market-based economy with trade and stratification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-marked_coins

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>>2104035
>>2104047
I guess what I'm really getting at is that compared to contemporary cultures there is (or at least I've seen) a remarkable absence of physical archaeological evidence and artifacts befitting an advanced society that sang hymns to war gods and spoke of distinctly Indo-European innovations such as chariots. Has there been anything found that is comparable to the Trundholm sun chariot, or the fine metal working of the Halstatt gold, or the numerous Iron Age swords and weapons that are found throughout Europe and the Near East? You mentioned the Shang and Olmec but is anything dating from the Vedic period of the same quality or scale as the Shang bronzes or the Olmec giant heads? The spearhead you posted is what I mentioned about in the OP - a handful of hoards with very crude metal implements - and they show little to no sign of use which points to a ceremonial nature. Given the time period and extent of the Vedic age it's surprising that the most we've found are a few simple metal tools/religious objects.
And while I don't downplay their intellectual achievements what's really bugging me is that practically the entire history of the subcontinent between the Indus Valley Civilization and the Mauryans is based on oral tradition and religious mythologies, things that I don't believe constitute hard historical fact.

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>>2104576
I'm not that familiar with Vedic archaeology, but no, I don't think there's anything comparable to the artifacts you mentioned. As far as I know, the same is also true for the pre-Median Iranians, so it might just be that the early Aryans in general simply didn't have any strong artistic tradition, at least not in permanent forms (pic related is all I know of, from Arkaim around 2000 BC). As I mentioned, there are other complex cultures that just didn't place much emphasis on art, like Carthage. I'll admit it is odd just how little there is though.

There could be a survivorship bias; maybe they had plenty of great wooden or textile art and it just hasn't survived in India's humid climate. For example, if the Inca didn't have a climate so well-suited for preservation, we would never have known how good their textiles were and probably would have thought they had no art at all. Another example, actually related to the Indo-Aryans, would be the Pazyryk culture whose brilliant textiles and tattoos were only preserved by the cold steppe; I doubt they would have survived in India. That's just guesswork though.