By Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan Introduction Balochistan rarely appears at the center of any historical narrative. It sits instead at the edges of others: the eastern frontier of Persian empires, a punishing detour on Alexander's retreat from India, a buffer state between British India and Afghanistan, a province wedged between the ambitions of larger neighbors today. But that peripheral position is precisely what makes its history so revealing. Few regions have been claimed by so many empires while being fully absorbed by none. Few have produced so clear a pattern of outside powers overestimating their control and underestimating the terrain — and the people — they were trying to govern. This article traces the major turning points in Balochistan's history, from the Neolithic villages of Mehrgarh through the region's incorporation into the modern state of Pakistan, and into the contested present. Some of these turning points are archaeological and largely settled matters of...