General Awareness `color{blue}✎` Pre - Historic Period
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Introduction

`color{red} ✍️` The Indian prehistoric era is one of the most fascinating and intriguing eras to read about. The prehistoric period in the history of mankind can roughly be dated from `color{blue}(20,0000 "BC")` to about `color{blue}(3500-2500 "BC")` when the first civilizations began to take shape. The history of India is no exception.

`color{red} ✍️` The first modern human beings or the Homo sapiens set foot on the Indian subcontinent anywhere between `color{blue}(20,0000 "BC")` and `color{blue}(40,000 "BC")` and they soon spread throughout a large part of the subcontinent, including peninsular India.

`color{red} ✍️` They continuously flooded the Indian subcontinent in waves after waves of migration from what is present-day Iran. These primitive people moved in groups of few families and lived mainly on hunting and gathering.

Stone Age

`color{red} ✍️` The age when the prehistoric man began to use stones for the utilitarian purpose is termed as the `color{blue}("Stone Age")`. It was the era when early man used stones for functional and useful purposes.

`color{red} ✍️` The `color{red} ("Stone Age")` is further classified into three categories which are the `color{blue} ("Paleolithic Age, Mesolithic Age" and "Neolithic Age")`. These divisions have been made on the basis of the kind of stone tools that were used during these times.

Stone Age: Paleolithic Age

`color{red} ✍️` It was basically a hunting and food gathering culture 'Palaeo' means 'old' and 'lithic' means 'stone'. `color{blue}("Palaeolithic age")` in India is divided into three phases:

` color{red} (1.) color{red}ul("Early or Lower Palaeothic")color{green} ("(50,000 - 100,000 BC)")` : It covers the greater part of the Ice Age and its characteristic feature is the use of hand-axe, cleaners and chopper.

` color{red}(2.) color{red} ul ("Middle Palaeothic") color{green}("(100,000 - 40,000 BC)")`: The Middle Palaeothic culture is characterised by flakes. The principal tools are variety of blades, points and scrappers made of flakes.

` color{red} (3.) color{red}ul ("Upper Palaeolithic") color{green}("(40,000 - 10,000 BC)")` : It marks the appearance of Homo Sapiens and new flint industries; widespread appearance of a figurines and other artifacts reflecting art and rituals; the appearance of wide range of bone tools, including needles, fishing tools, harpoons, blades and burin tools.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

Mesolithic Age

`color{red} ul("Mesolithic Age") color{green}("(10,000-4,000 BC)")`

`color{red} ✍️` It was the transitional between `color{blue}("Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages")`. Its characteristic tools are microliths all made of stone. The microliths were first discovered by Carlyle in 1867 from Vindhyan Rock Shelters.

`color{red} ✍️` This age is also known by various names like `color{blue} ("Late Stone Age" or "Microlithic Age")`. The Mesolithic people lived on hunting, fishing and food-gathering. Earliest domestication of animals has also been witnessed from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

`color{red} ✍️` Mesolithic 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 centimetres long.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` 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, green, white and yellow were used in making these paintings.

Neolithic Age

`color{red} ul("Neolithic Age") color{green}("(New Stone Age)") color{green}("(6,000-1,000 BC)")`

`color{red} ✍️` The `color{blue} ("Neolithic Age")` or `color{blue} ("The New Stone Age")` was the last phase of the Stone Age and is characterised by very finely flaked, small stone tools, also known as blades and burins.

`color{red} ✍️` The civilisation and culture of the Neolithic age shows distinct traces of progress. The Neolithic men had a settled life and they practised agriculture and grew fruits and corn.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` Instead of eating the uncooked flesh of various animals, they now started roasting it.

`color{red} ✍️` Besides this, bows and arrows were invented and were used for the purpose of hunting.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` The stone tools of the Neolithic age bear unmistakable signs of polish either all over the tools or at the butt end 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.

`color{red} ✍️` Neolithic settlers were cattle-herders and agriculturists. They produced ragi, wheat, barley, rice, masoor, moong, kulthi etc.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` Red, Grey, Black and Red Ware, Black Burnished Ware and Mat-impressed Wars are associated with this culture.

`color{red} ✍️` Tools making was another important occupation which included a variety of picks, scrapers, eyed needles, bodkins and pierced batons.

Chalcolithic Phase

`color{red} ul("Chalcolithic Phase") color{green}("(1800-1,000 BC)")`

`color{red} ✍️` Towards the end of the Neolithic period began the use of metals. First 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.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` Their economy was based on subsistence agriculture, stock-raising, hunting and fishing. Their tools consisted of a specialised blade and flake of siliceous material like chalcedony and chert. Copper and bronze tools were present in a limited number. The culture shares the common characteristic of painted pottery.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

Iron Age

`color{red} ✍️` In Southern India, use of iron came after the use of stone. In any case, there were periods of overlappings 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 Deccan. These iron monuments appear to have belonged to both pre-historic and historic periods.

`color{red} ✍️` 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.

`color{red} ✍️` It refers to the ceramics which have been fired grey and then painted with black designs. The name chosen is highly misleading and can lead many beginners to think this, as a type, which is painted with grey colour. The grey colour, it is believed, is obtained by firing thin clay pots to as high as at temperature as 800 degree Celsius.

✓ Points to Remember

`color{blue} ●` The Palaeolithic culture of India developed in the Pleistocene period or the Ice Age, which lasted between one million and 10,000 years before the Holocene period (the present geological period).

`color{blue} ●` The Holocene period began 10,000 years ago.

`color{blue} ●` The Lower Palaeolithic phase existed between 2,50,000 BC and 1,00,000 BC; the Middle Palaeolithic between 1,00,000 BC and 40,000 BC; and the Upper Palaeolithic between 40,000 BC and 10,000 BC.

`color{blue} ●` The Mesolithic culture continued to be important roughly from 9,000 BC to 4,000 BC. .

`color{blue} ●` The microliths are the characteristic tools of the Mesolithic age.

`color{blue} ●` Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh is a striking site of both the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic paintings.

`color{blue} ●` The Mesolithic people lived on hunting, fishing and food gathering.

`color{blue} ●` In the Belan valley (Uttar Pradesh), all the three phases of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic have been found in sequence.

`color{blue} ●` Adamgarh (Madhya Pradesh) and Bagor (Rajasthan) provide the earliest evidence for the domestication of animals.

`color{blue} ●` The Neolithic Age or the New Stone Age began in 9000 BC. But in the Indian continent, the earliest Neolithic settlement was in Mehrgarh (Baluchistan, Pakistan). T Mehrgarh settlement emerged around 7000 Bc.

`color{blue} ●` The Neolithic people used tools and implements polished stone.

`color{blue} ●` The Neolithic people in Kashmir also used bones making numerous tools and weapons.

`color{blue} ●` The Neolithic settlers were the earliest farming comm nities. Neolithic people of Mehrgarh produced cotton.

`color{blue} ●` The Homo sapiens, the modern man, emerged in the Upper Palaeolithic period.

`color{blue} ●` The earliest evidence of cultivation of plants occurs in the region of Rajasthan in India.

`color{blue} ●` Large scale farming activities were undertaken by the communities belonging to the Chalcolithic cultures in peninsular India.

`color{blue} ●` Black and Red Ware (BRW) was the most widel prevalent pottery form in the Chalcolithic period.


 
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