Pre-history and Proto-history:
A B C D of life
- Prehistory- distant past when man kept no written records
- History- The part of story of man's progress for which we have written records
- The story of man start about three million years ago, early man evolved from tree apes, began to learn to walk on two feet on the earth.
- The age of Earth is 4500 million
- Earth is very old and so is the antiquity of man. The earliest human fossils have been found in Africa dating about 4.2 million years. The primitive man was shorter in height and had a smaller brain. Homo sapiens evolved over a period of these years about 50,000 years ago. Humans have been using stone tools and their life story is, therefore, divided into Paleolithic,Mesolithic and Neolithic age
| Evolution of Man |
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Evolution of Man
- The Ice Age(during Pleistocene period)- adapted themselves to the changed change,migrated,went through process of evolution and developed into new species(Man belongs to the group of mammals known as primates).
- Man stands Erect < biological change(wrists,flexible fingers and a opposite thumb, etc.) < made the ape man to a craftsman.
- Australopithecus-can walk upright
- hominids-man like beings-'Ramapithecus'{8 million years Ago}(first appeared in Africa during Pleistocene epoch)
- Australopithecus < Zinjanthropus < Pithecanthropus Erectus < Sinanthropus < Neanderthal Man < Cro-Magnon Man, who belong to the Homo sapiens species.
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Palaeolithic Age cab be further divided into following:-
| Palaeolithic Age | ||
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| Lower Palaeolithic Culture | Middle Palaeolithic Culture | Upper Palaeolithic Culture |
| (5,00,000 - 100,00 BC) | (100,000 - 40,000 BC) | (40,000 - 10,000 BC) |
| Pre Historic Phases | |||
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| Stone Age | Primary Culture | Major Site | Importance |
| Lower Palaeolithic | Flakes,Chopper Chopping Culture | Kashmir, Punjab, Whole India except Sind and Kerala. Main :- Sohan(Punjab), Singrauli basin (U.P.), Chhotanagpur (Jharkhand), Assam, Narmada, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka. | - Head axe and pebble tools, Fossil ofHomo Erectus from Hathnaura (Narmada basin) - Represented by Sohan Culture (now in Pakistan.) |
| Middle Palaeolithic | Scraper/Booer Culture | Navasa (Maharashtra), Didwana (Rajasthan), Bhimbetka (MP), Bankura and Purulia (West Bengal), Narmada Valley etc. | - Varieties of Blades, Points, Borer and Scraper made of Flakes. - 200 rock shelters and caves are located on Bhimbetka hills having thousands of paintings. |
| Upper Palaeolithic | Blade and Burin Culture | A.P. (Kurnool, Chittor) Karnataka, Central MP, Jharkhan Plateau, U.P., Rajasthan, Gujrat | - The age of Neanderthal Man - Earlier "Homo Sapiens" - Harpoon, blade tools from Renugunta (A.P.) - Bone tools from Kurnool. |
| Meslithic Age | Microliths Culture or Fluting & Gometrical tools | Karnataka, Rajasthan (Bagor, Tilwara), Gujrat (Langhanj), M.P., Tamil Nadu,West Benal (Birbhanpur), U.P. (Sarai Nahar Rai) | - Microlith (a great technological development, introduction of compound tools) - Man still a savage but pottery maing (Tilwara) and permanent habitation found, still a hunder, fisher. |
| Neolithic Ate | Polished tool culture | Kashmir (Burzahom, Gufkral), Assam (Daojili Hading), Garohill Meghalaya, Bihar (Chirand), Peninsular India, Amri, Kotdiji, Mehargarh etc | - Earlies Farming community - Kinship became the basis of social organisation - Pit dwelling houses - Food begain to be cooked by fire -Evidence of dogs, circular huts made of bamboo, bone-tools, hand made pottery etc - Also called "Neolithic Revolution" -Boat making, spinning cotton and wool. |
Geographical factors;
- The ancient civilization of India grew up in a sharply demarcated sub-continent bounded on the north by the world's largest mountain range-the chain of the Himalayas, which, with its extensions to east and west, divided India from the rest of Asia and the world.
- The long sea coasts of India facilitated the growth of maritime trade and a large number of harbours were established through which trade relations with Rome, China, Malaya, South East Asian archipelago were set up. India's centralised position in Indian Ocean is also of great strategic and economic importance.
- India is a curious meeting place of diverse religions, races, manners and customs. From the point of religion, India is the home of the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and the Paris.
- Diversity is also to be seen in the languages of the Indian people. From the points of view of race, religions, language, manners and customs, the Indians constitute a composite population.
- Herodotusobserved that "of all the nations, that we know, it is India has the largest population."
- In ancient literature, mention is found of five natural divisions of India:-
- 1.Madhyadesa,i.e. Indo Gangetic plain stretcing from the valley of the river Saraswat to the Rajmahal Hill. This division has been known as Aryavarta from the ancient times.
- 2.Uttarapatha or Udichya i.e. North-West India
- 3.Pratichyaor Aparanta i.e. Western India
- 4.Dakshinapatha or Dakshinatya i.e. the area south of Madhyadesa
- 5.Prachya or Purvadesa, the region east of Madhyadesa
- Factors :The course of history is also shaped through geographical factors, such as geology, climate, etc. The study of Indian physiography, therefore, can be classified into three territorial compartments, such as the northern plains of the Indus and Ganga basin, the Deccan plateau lying to the south of the Narmada and to the north of Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers and the far south Tamil states.
hunting and gathering (paleolithic and mesolithic);
Palaeolithic Age or Old Stone Age
It was basically a hunting and food gathering culture 'Palaeo' means 'old' and 'lithic' means 'stone'. Palaeolithic age in India is divided into three phases:
- Earliest Palaeolithic man lived on hunting and food gathering. The hunting and gathering pattern was dependent upon the season. The nature of stone tools also varied according to the climate.
- Not knowing how to grow his food, he ate fruits, birds, raw animal flesh etc.
- The people were wanderers and moved from places to place.
- They took refuge under the rocks in caves and hollow tree trunks.
{1}Early or Lower Palaeothic (50,000 - 100,000 BC) :
{2}Middle Palaeothic (100,000 - 40,000 BC):
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Non- Culture Theme
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| Facts to Remember |
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- Rock paintings and carvings have been numerously founded in Bhimbetka from different periods.
- The animals depicted in these paintings were mostly bisons, elephants, tigers, rhinocerous, boars etc. and were based on their hunting lives.
- The upper Palaeolithic art is characterised by red and green colours.
Art
- Bhimbetka.
- Patne ostrich shell.
- Baghor I, upper paleolithic site. In the middle of a circular platform made of sandstone rubble, a rock with concentric triangles painted in light yellowish red to dark reddish brown have been found.
Religion
- In the auditorium cave of Bhimbetka, one rock with 7 cup engravings and another rock with one single large cup mark along with a meandering line has been found. One explanation is that it was used as a gong in some kind of ritual. Time period is lower - middle paleolithic.
- Baghor I in MP from upper paleolithic. In the middle of a circular platform made of sandstone rubble, a rock with concentric triangles painted in light yellowish red to dark reddish brown have been found. This indicates pagan worship. The pieces of the rock when joined together form a triangle itself.
Community Life
- They lived in more or less permanent homes. This indicates sufficiency of food and other resources. Their houses were made of stone, grass, wood, leaves etc. There were some sites which served as temporary habitation only - people came, lived for a certain part of an year and went away. Some sites were connected to specific activities.
- Their social organization was "band based" i.e. they were organized in a small group which moved together. There was division of labor based on age and sex. There were no formal institutions, no chiefs etc. No one had a superior claim on the resources.
Mesolithic Age or microlithic Period or Middle Stone Age or Late stone Age
- Man began to make fine tools(Microliths).
- domesticated Dogs, helped him in hunting game.
- they harvested the food grains.
- Important Sites- Bagor in Rajasthan, Langhnaj in Gujrat, etc
- It was the transitional between Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages. Its characcteristic tools are microliths all made of stone.
- The microliths were first discovered by Carlyle in 1867 from Vindhyan Rock Shelters.
- This age is also known by various names like Late Stone Age or Microlithic Age. The Mesolithic people lived on hunting, fishing and food-gathering.
- Earliest domestication of animals has alo been witnessed from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Mesolithic Tools:
Tools are characterised by parallel-sided blades taken out from prepared cores of fine-materials as chert, crystal, chalcedony, jasper, carnelian, agate etc. and were generally one to five centimeters long.
Paintings :
Paintings :
- At various sites in Bhimbetka, Adamgarh, etc. rock and cave paintings have been discovered. In these paintings, various subjects including animals and human scenes have been found. Animals are the most frequently depicted subjects either alone or in large and small groups and shown in various poses.
- Depiction of human figures in rock paintings is quite common. Dancing, running, hunting, playing games and quarrelling were commonly depicted scenes. Colours like deep red, gree, white and yellow were used in making these paintings.
Mesolithic Age
Art
- The paintings show animals singly as well as being hunted. Hunting scenes are depicted. Snakes are absent. There was the famous Bhimbetka boar who had the body of a boar but other features of a rhino, elephant and buffalo.
- The paintings sometimes sow internal organs of human beings including fetuses in the womb. The male figures look like matchsticks whereas the female figures were sometimes fuller. There were masked dancers or the dancing sorcerers.
- They clearly depict a division of labor based on sex.
Religion
- The paintings show fetus in a womb. Figures of men and women symbolizing fertility are quite common.
- Dead began to be properly buried and grave goods indicate ideas of after life. There are also double burials, not necessarily that of a man and a woman (indicating family life not yet begun in any systematic manner) and also average age was approximately 30 years.
Community Life
- In the Bhimbetka paintings, hunters are shown hunting in groups as well. They used to wear masks, crowns and ornaments made of bones. In hunting, they made use of projectiles as well as sticks. They had dogs to accompany in hunting and they laid traps as well for their prey.
- In order to make small tools, it was necessary to change from using pebble stones to a different kind of stone like quartz, chert, agate, chalcedony etc. which is easier to flake. Thus we see habitats shifting away from river banks and closer to the hills.
- Postholes have been found which indicate that people began to live in huts (and out of rock shelters and caves).
Beginning of agriculture (neolithic and chalcolithic).
- The word 'neolithic' was first coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865.Miles Burkit enumerated four characteristics of neolithic culture
- Animal domestication
- Agricultural practice
- Grined and Polished stone tools and
- Pottery manufacture
- The discovery of the tools and implements of the neolithic age was made by Le Mesurier in Uttar Pradesh in 1860.
- Later on, Frasherdiscovered such objects in Bellary in South India. The people of this age used tools and implements of polished stone.
- Cultivation of crops- From a food gatherer to a food producer
- Domestication of Goat after Dog then other animals also.
- Development of permanent settlement
- Started mixed farming- the practice which combines agriculture with the raising of animals
- Polished stone tools
- invention of pottery
- Spinning and weaving
- religious beliefs
- invention of the Wheel
Neolithic People :
- The civilisation and culture of the Neolithic age shows distinct traces of progress. The Neolithic men had a settled life.
- They practised agriculture and grew fruits and corn. Animals, such as the cow, dog, ox, goat etc. were domesticated.
- The art of producing fire by the friction of bamboos or pieces of stones was known to them. Instead of eating the uncooked flesh of various animals, they now started roasting it.
- Besides this, bows and arrows were invented and were used for the purpose of hunting. They also learnt pottery, at first by hand and then with the potter's wheel.
- They painted and decorated their pots. They lived in caves, the walls of which were polished and painted with the scenes of hunting and dancing.
- The also learnt the art of spinning and weaving clothes. They used to bury their dead and construct tombs over them which were known as Dolmens, Menhirs etc.s
Neolithic Tools:
- The stone tools of the Neolithic age bear unmistakeable signs of polish either all over the tools or at the buttend and working-end, or only at the working end.
- They fashioned their tools out of fine-grained dark-green trap, though there are examples of the use of diorite, basalt, slate, chlorite, schist, indurated shale, gneiss, sand stone and quartzite.
Occupation:
- Neolithic settlers were cattle-herders and agriculturists. They produced ragi, wheat, barley, rice, masoor, moong, kulthi etc.
- Hand-made pottery is also found in the early stage. Elephant, rhino, buffalo, ox, stag remains are also found in plenty. But there is no specification of these domesticated.
- The pottery were well made but were coarse in nature, not that much polished.
- Red, Grey, Black and Red Ware, Black Burnished Ware and Mat-impressed Wars are associated with this culture.
- Tools making was another important occupation which included a variety of picks, scrapers, eyed needles, bodkins and pierced batons.
| Facts to Remember |
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Chalcolithic Age
- Towards the end of neolithic period began the use of metals.
- Firt metal to be used was copper and the culture of that time is called Chalcolithic cultre.
- The earliest settlements belonging to this phase are extended from the Chhotanagpur plateau to the copper Gangetic basin.
- Some sites are found at Brahmagiri near Mysore and Navada Toli on the Narmada.
- The transition from use of stone to the use of metals is slow and long drawn.
- There is no doubt that there was an overlapping period when both stone and metals were used. This is proved by the close resemblance of metallic tools and implements with those made of stone.
- The Chalcolithic i.e. copper bronze age or stone-copper age of India produced a splendid civilisation in the Indus Valley which spread in the neighbouring regions.
- Important Chalcolithic Culture are: Ahar Culture; Kayatha Culture; Malwa Culture; Savalda Culture; Jorwe Culture; Prabhas Culture; Rangpur Culture;
Occupation:
- Their economy was based on subsistence agricultre, stock-raising, hunting and fishing.
- Their tools consisted of a specialised blade and flake of silicious material like chalcedony and chert.
- Copper and bronze tools were present in a limited number. The culture shares the common characteristic of painted pottery.
Burial Practices:
- Another striking feature was the burial practice of the dead.
- The dead were buried in north-south position in Maharashtra but in east-west position in south India. In eastern India, only a fraction of population buried their dead.
| Chalcolithic Settlement Pattern |
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About Pottery and Types
| Pottery | Type |
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| Ahar | Red Ware |
| Kayatha | Deep Red Ware |
| Malwa | Deep Brown & Black |
| Saalda | Pictographic (Red & Black) |
| Jorwe | Pictographic (Red & Black) |
| Prabhas | Pictographic (Red & Black) |
| Rangpur | Polished Red |
The Copper Phase
- More than forty hoards consisting of rings, celts, hatches, swords, harpoons, spearheads and human-like figures have been found in a wide area ranging from West Bengal and Orrisa in the East to Gujrat and Haryana in the West, and from Andhra Pradesh in the south to Uttar Pradesh in North.
- The largest hoard comes from Gungeria in Madhya Pradesh; it contains 424 copper tools and weapons and 102 thin sheets of silver objects. But nearly half of the copper hoards are concentrated in the Ganga-Yamuna doab.
- All the implements of the copper hoards supplemented by stone tools led a settled life, and were one of the earliest Chalcolithic agriculturists and artisans to settle in a good portion of the doab.
| Copper Hoard |
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Pottery :
This period was marked by two types of pottery: Ochre-Coloured Pottery which can be roughly placed between 2000 BC-1500 BC on the scientific dating and Black and Red pottery from about 1000 BC.
Ochre-Coloured Pottery (OCP):
- A new pottery type was discovered during excavatings at Badaun and Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh in 1950.
- It was called Ochre Coloured (OCP) as it contained a wash of ochre. The colour of the pottery ranges from orange to red. The Chalcolithic sites with such type of ware are ascribed to OCP culture.
- The period covered by the OCP culture is roughly placed between 2000 BC and 1500 BC. The Black and Red Ware (BRW) followed the OCP.
Excavations of Atranjikheda in Uttar Pradesh in the 1960s brought to light a distinct pottery. The pottery, called the BRW, is sandwiched between the OCP and the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) of Iron Age or the Early Vedic Age.
Iron Age
- In Southern India, use of iron came after the use of stone. In any case, there were periods of overlappongs in the use of stone, copper, bronze and iron.
- Our only evidence of the transition from copper-bronze age to the iron age is the monuments like dolmens, cairns, cremolechs. These have been found in wide areas all over India such as Assam, Bihar, Orrisa, Central India, Gujrat and Kashmir. But by far the largest number has been found in south India, in Karnataka and the Decan.
- These iron monuments appear to have belonged to both pre-historic and historic periods.
- Monuments discovered in Hyderabad, Mysore, Tinnevelly district, Coimbatore, Malaba, Penumbur etc. also show varied stages of development.
- Neolithic, Microlithic tools along with copper, bronze and iron implements have been discovered, making it difficult to identify the actual period of transition from copper-bronze age to iron age. At this stage of our limited knowledge, no definite conclusion in this regard can be arrived at. Iron age is usually associated with the Painted Grey Ware.
Painted Grey Ware (PGW) :
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| Pre Historic Findings |
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Very helpful thankyou :)
ReplyDeleteToo much helpful ....sir...thank you..for ur inspiration
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