ALL GENERAL KNOWLEDGE POINT (UPSC, CIVIL EXAM AND OTHER COMPETITIVE EXAM ),CBSE STUDENT FOR QUESTION AND ANSWER
TOPIC 3;- NEOLITHIC
Neolithic Age (Food-Producing Stage)
In northern India, the Neolithic age emerged around c.8000−6000 BCE. At certain spots in south and eastern India, it is as late as 1000 BCE. Its significance in pre-history can be gauged by the fact that V. Gordon Childe termed the Neolithic phase as Neolithic Revolution. It introduced a lot of innovations such as:
(a) Advent of food production: The Neolithic man cultivated land and developed fruits & corn like ragi and horse gram (kulathi). He domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats.(b) Innovations in technology: The Neolithic man innovated in the production of stone tools,producing implements such as polished, pecked, and ground stone tools. They depended on polished stones other than quartzite for making tools. The use of celts was especially important for ground and polished handaxes. Based on the types of axes used, three important areas of Neolithic Settlements can be identified:
(a) North-Western: Rectangular axes with curved cutting edge.
(b) North-Eastern: Polished stone axes with rectangular butt,has occasional shouldered hoes.
(c) Southern: Axes with oval sides and pointed butt.
(c) Invention of pottery: The Neolithic era communities first made pottery by hand and then with the help of the potter’s wheel. Their pottery included black burnished ware, grey ware, and mat-impressed ware. It can therefore be said that pottery on a large-scale appeared in this phase.
(d) Emergence of self-sufficient village communities: In the later phases of the Neolithic era, people led a more settled life. They lived in circular and rectangular houses made of mud and reed. They also knew how to make boats and could spin cotton and wool and weave cloth.
(e) Division of labour based on sex and age: As society was progressing,the need for additional labour was recognised and thus labour was procured from other non kin groups too.
Some of the important excavated Neolithic Sites along with their unique aspects are as follows:
-Burzahom (unique rectangular chopper, domestic dogs buried with their masters in graves) and Gufkraal in Jammu and Kashmir (famous for pit dwelling, stone tools, and graveyards
located within households)
-Maski, Brahmagiri, Piklihal (proof of cattle herding), Budihal (community food preparation and feasting), and Tekkalakota in Karnataka
-Paiyampalli in Tamil Nadu, Utnur in Andhra Pradesh
-Garo Hills in Meghalaya, Chirand in Bihar (impressive utilization of bone executes, particularly those made of antlers) Saraikhola, near Taxila on Potwar plateau, Amri, Kotdiji and
-Mehrgarh (the earliest Neolithic site known as the Breadbasket of Baluchistan, a province of Pakistan)
-Koldihwa, in Belan valley (unique in terms of the presence of a three-fold Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Iron Age settlements), Koldihwa and Mahagara, south of Allahabad (many strata of circular huts along with crude hand-made pottery; earliest evidence of rice cultivation in the world)
-Chopani – Mando, Belan valley (earliest evidence of use of pottery)
-Belan Valley, on the northern spurs of the Vindhyas, and the middle part of the Narmada valley (evidence of all the three phases of Paleolithic settlement, followed by Mesolithic and Neolithic settlements)
Chalcolithic Age / Copper-Stone Age (c.3000−500 BCE)
The Chalcolithic age marked the emergence of the use of metal along with stone tools. The first metal to be used was copper, though they also occasionally used bronze. Technologically, the Chalcolithic stage largely applies to the settlements of pre-Harappans, but in various parts of country, it appears after the end of the bronze Harappa culture. Some Chalcolithic cultures are contemporary of Harappan culture and some of pre-Harappan cultures, though it is possible to say that most Chalcolithic cultures are post-Harappan. Some prominent sites of pre-Harappan Chalcolithic culture are Ganeshwar, near the Khetri Mines of Rajasthan, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Banawali in Haryana, Kot Diji in Sindh (Pakistan).
Chalcolithic people domesticated cows, sheep, goats, pigs and buffaloes, and hunted deer. They ate beef but did not like pork and were also not acquainted with horses. It is rather interesting to note that the domesticated animals were slaughtered for food and not milked for dairy products (this practice still continues among the (Gond people of Bastar). The people of the Chalcolithic phase produced wheat and rice as their staple, bajra, several pulses such as lentil, black gram, green gram, and grass pea, while those living in eastern regions lived on fish and rice. They practiced more slash-burn or jhum cultivation. However, neither the plough nor the hoe has been found at any site of this period. They used different types of pottery, of which black and red pottery was the most popular. This was made using the potter’s wheel and was painted with white line design. Equally interesting is the fact that female potters did not use the potter’s wheel, only men did.
Other distinguishing features of people in the Chalcolithic age are as follows:
- They were not acquainted with burnt brick, and generally lived in thatched houses made of mud bricks. There economy was a village-based economy.
- Chalcolithic-era people did not know the use of writing.
- Their villages were small, with huts close to each other.
- Chalcolithic age people cooked their food.
- Small clay images of earth goddesses have been found from Chalcolithic sites. It is thus possible to say that they venerated the Mother Goddess.
- Chalcolithic people were fond of ornaments and decoration. The women wore ornaments of shell and bone and carried finely worked combs in their hair.
- The bull was probably the symbol of their religious cult (based on stylised bull terracottas of Malwa and Rajasthan).
- The Chalcolithic people were expert coppersmiths. They knew the art of copper-smelting and were good stone workers as well.
- They fabricated beads of semi-precious stones such as carnelian, steatite, and quartz crystal.
- They knew spinning and weaving.
- Chalcolithic settlements have been found in south-eastern Rajasthan, western M.P. western Maharashtra, as well as other parts of southern and eastern India. There are definite regional differences in terms of cereals produced and consumed, pottery made, and so on. For instance, eastern India produced rice, whereas western India developed barley and wheat. In Maharashtra, the dead were buried in the north-south direction, whereas in southern India they were buried in the east-west direction. In eastern India, fractional burial was practiced.
- Infant mortality was very high among Chalcolithic people, as evident from the burial of a large number of children in western Maharashtra.
- One can note the beginnings of social inequalities in Chalcolithic societies, as chiefs who lived in rectangular houses dominated others who lived in round huts.
- Ahar (smelting and metallurgy, stone houses) and Gilund (occasional use of burnt bricks) in Banas Valley, Rajasthan
- Nevasa, Jorwe (non-Harappan culture), Navdatoli (cultivated almost all foodgrains), Daimabad (huge Jorwe culture site in the Godavari valley, famous for the recovery of bronze goods), Songaon, Inamgaon (great mud houses with ovens and circular pit houses) and Nasik, Maharashtra
- Chirand, Senuar, Sonpur in Bihar andMahishdal in West Bengal
- Kayatha (mud-plastered floors, pre-Harappan elements in pottery), Malwa (richest Chalcolithic ceramics, spindle whorls, non-Harappan culture), Eran, M.P. (non- Harappan culture)
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