Like the Kachhi plain, the Gomal valley juts out of the Indus alluvium towards north-east Baluchistan and Afghanistan. The archaeological sequence begins in the Period I of Gumla, a small site of a little more than one acre, and ends up with the Indus civilization. Period I is aceramic and shows microliths, domesticated cattle bone, and large shallow pits used for cooking/roasting. Period II has a wide range of painted wheelmade pottery (some with ‘Quetta ware’ designs and some with ‘Kot Diji forms’), microlithic tools, a limited amount of copper and bronze and terracotta bangles, gamesmen, toycarts and cattle and female figurines (one type with a stylized lower body and the other in a seated posture but with extended-out bent legs). Period III is dominated by Kot Diji pottery forms and designs (cf. ‘homed deity’) and the appearance of a new terracotta female figurine style (flat triangular lower portion extended out in front), but otherwise there is continuity of occupation. Period IV belongs to the Indus civilization.
Rehman Dheri is a much larger site (more than 20 ha) in an area which receives less than 164 cm of annual rainfall. Here, the barani dagar method of irrigation, in which the water is allowed to accumulate in the fields by banking the lower sides, and when they are dry ploughing and sowing are done, taking care to level the field with a wooden plank to seal its capillary line and thus keep the moisture inside, is practised. Although periodization has been offered on the basis of the changes in pottery designs and styles, basically it is a Kot Diji culture site, showing an increasing number of Kot Diji pottery forms and designs culminating in some Indus civilization examples. Otherwise, the site is fortified right from the beginning, with a 1.2 m wide mud and mud-brick wall resting on a 1.8 m wide foundation wall of the same material. Wheat, barley, fish and domesticated cattle, sheep and goat complement the picture, but two interesting features of the site are the occurrence of an ivory seal (two stags on one side, a scorpion and a frog on the other) right at the beginning and the wide occurrence of graffiti engraved either on the bases or at the rims of pots from the middle phase onwards. The calibrated date range of Rehman Dheri is c. 3400–2100 BC.