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Periodization & human evolution - Part 1
1.0 Introduction
The Earth is nearly 4000 million years (4 billion years) old. The evolution of its crust shows four stages.
The fourth stage is called the Quaternary, which is divided into Pleistocene (most recent) and Holocene (present); the former lasted between 10,00,000 and 10,000 years before the present and the latter began about 10,000 years ago. Man is said to have appeared on the earth in the early Pleistocene, when true ox, true elephant and true horse also originated. But now this event seems to have occurred in Africa about 2.6 million years back.
The fossils of the early humans have not been found in India. A hint of the earliest human presence is indicated by stone tools obtained from the deposits ascribable to the Second Glaciation, which could be dated around 2,50,000 B.C. However, recently reported artefacts from Bori in Maharashtra take the appearance of man as early as 1.4 million years ago. At present it appears that India was settled later than Africa, although the lithic technology of the subcontinent broadly evolved in the same manner as it did in Africa. The early man in India used tools of stone roughly dressed by crude chipping, which have been discovered throughout the country except the alluvial plains of Indus, Ganga and Yamuna Rivers. The chipped stone tools and chopped pebbles were used for hunting, cutting and other purposes. In this period man barely managed to gather his food and lived on hunting. He had no knowledge of cultivation and house building. This phase generally continued till 9000 B.C.
2.0 THE PALEOLITHIC AGE
Palaeolithic tools, which could be as old as 1,00,000 B.C., have been found in the Chhotanagpur plateau. Such tools belonging to 20,000 B.C.- 10,000 B.C. have been found in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh. In assoctation with them bone implements and animal remains have also been discovered. Animal remains found in the Belan Valley in Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh show that goats, sheep and cattle were exploited. However, in the earliest Palaeolithic phase man lived on hunting and food gathering. The puranas speak of people who lived on roots and fruits; some of these people have been living in the old way in the hills and caves till modern times.
The old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic culture of India developed in the Pleistocene period of the Ice Age. Although human remains associated with stone tools found in Africa are considered 2.6 million years old, in India the first human occupations, as clearly suggested by stone tools, are not earlier than the Middle Pleistocene. In the Pleistocene period ice sheets covered a great portion of the earth's surface, particularly in the higher altitudes and their peripheries. But the tropical regions, excepting the mountains, were free from ice. On the other hand, they underwent a period of great rainfall.
2.1 Phases in the Paleolithic Age
The Palaeolithic Age in India is divided into three phases according to the nature of the stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of change in the climate. The first phase is called Early or Lower Palaeolithic, the Second, Middle Palaeolithic and the third Upper Palaeolithic. Unless adequate information is available about Bori artefacts, the first phase may be placed broadly between 2,50,000 B.C. and 1,00,000 B.C.; the second between 1,00,000 B.C. and 40,000 B.C.; and the third between 40,000 B.C. and 10,000 B.C. on the basis of scientific datings available so far.
The Lower Palaeolithic or the Early Old Stone Age covers the greater part of the Ice Age. Its characteristic feature is the use of hand-axes, cleavers and choppers. The axes found in India are more or less similar to those of Western Asia, Europe and Africa. Stone tools were used mainly for chopping, digging and skinning. The Early Old Stone Age sites are found in the valley of River Soan or Sohan in Punjab, now in Pakistan. Several sites have been found in Kashmir and the Thar Desert. The Lower Palaeolithic tools have also been found in the Belan valley in Mirzapur District in Uttar Pradesh. Those found in the desert area of Didwana in Rajasthan, in the valleys of the Belam and the Narinada, and in the caves and rock shelters of Bhimbetka near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh roughly belong to 1,00,000 B.C. The rockshelters may have served as seasonal camps for human beings. Hand-axes have been found in a deposit of the time of the second Himalayan interglaciation. In this period climate became less humid.
The Middle Palaeolithic industries are mainly based upon flakes. These flakes are found in different parts of India and show regional variations. The principal tools are varieties of blades, points, borers and scrapers made of flakes. We also find a large number of borers and blade-like tools. The geographical horizon of the Middle Palaeolithic sites coincides roughly with that of the Lower Palaeolithic sites. Here we notice a crude pebble industry in strata contemporary with the third Himalayan glaciation. The artefacts of this age are also found at several places on the River Narmada, and also at several places, south of the Tungabhadra River.
The Upper Palaeolithic phase was less humid. It coincided with the last phase of the Ice Age when climate became comparatively warm. In the world context it marks the appearance of new flint industries and of humans of the modern type (Homo sapiens). In India, we notice the use of blades and burins, which have been found in Andhra, Karnataka Maharashtra, central Madhya Pradesh, Southern Uttar Pradesh, south Bihar plateau and the adjoining areas. Caves and rockshelters for use by human beings in the Upper Palaeolithic phase have been discovered at Bhimbetka, 45 km south of Bhopal. An Upper Palaeolithic assemblage, characterised by comparatively larger flakes, blades burins and scrapers has also been found in the upper levels of the Gujarat dunes.
It would thus appear that Palaeolithic sites are found in many hilly slopes and River valleys of the country; they are absent in the alluvial plains of the Indus and the Ganga.
2.2 The Mesolithic Age: Hunters and Herders
The Upper Palaeolithic Age came to an end with the end of the Ice Age around 9000 B.C., and the climate became warm and dry. Climatic changes brought about changes in fauna and flora and made it possible for human beings to move to new areas. Since then there have not been any major changes in climatic conditions. In 9000 B.C. began an intermediate stage in Stone Age culture, which is called the Mesolithic Age. It intervened as a transitional phase between the Palaeolithic Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The Mesolithic people lived on hunting, fishing and food gathering. At a later stage they also domesticated animals. The first three occupations continued the Palaeolithic practice, while the last was interrelated with the Neolithic culture.
The characteristic tools of the Mesolithic Age are microliths. The Mesolithic sites are found in good numbers in Rajasthan, Southern Uttar Pradesh, central and eastern India and also south of the River Krishna. Of them Bagor in Rajasthan is very well excavated. It had a distinctive microlithic industry, and its inhabitants subsisted on hunting and pastoralism. The site remained occupied for 5000 years from the fifth millennium B.C. onwards. Adamgarh in Madhya Pradesh and Bagor in Rajasthan provide the earliest evidence for the domestication of anlmals; this could be around 5000 B.C. The cultivation of plants around 7000-6000 B.C. is suggested in Rajasthan from a study of the deposits of the former Salt Lake, Sambhar.
So far only a few finds of the Mesolithic Age have been dated scientifically. The Mesolithic culture continued to be important roughly from 9000 B.C. to 4000 B.C. There is no doubt that it paved the way for the rise of the Neolithic culture.
2.3 Prehistoric art
The people of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ages practised painting. Prehistoric art appears at several places, but Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh is a striking site. Situated in the Vindhyan range, 45 km south of Bhopal, it has more than 500 painted rock shelters, distributed in an area of 10 sq km. The rock paintings extend from the Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic period and in some series even up to recent times. But a good many rock shelters are associated with the Mesolithic occupation. Many birds, animals and human beings are painted. Obviously most of the birds and animals that appear in painting were hunted for the sake of subsistence. Perching birds, which live upon grain, are absent in the earliest group of paintings, which evidently belongs to the hunting/gathering economy.
It is interesting to note that on the northern spurs of the Vindhyas in the Belan valley all the three phases of the Palaeolithic followed by the Mesolithic and then by the Neolithic have been found in sequence, and so is the case with the middle part of the Narmada valley. But in several areas the Neolithic culture succeeded the Mesolithic tradition, which continued right to the beginning of the Iron Age, i.e. 1000 B.C.
2.4 The Neolithic Age: Food producers
In the world context the New Stone Age began in 9000 B.C. The only Neolithic settlement in the Indian subcontinent attributed to 7000 B.C. lies in Mehrgarh, which is situated in Baluchistan, a province of Pakistan. In the initial stage, before 5000 B.C., the people of this place did not use any pottery. Some Neolithic sites found on the Northern spurs of the Vindhyas are considered as old as 5000 B.C. But generally Neolithic settlements found in south India are not older than 2500 B.C.; in some parts of Southern and eastern India they are as late as 1000 B.C.
The people of this age used tools and implements of polished stone. They particularly used stone axes, which have been found in large numbers in a good part of the hilly-tracts of the country. This cutting tool was put to various uses by the people, and in ancient legends the Hindu sage Parashurama (an avatar of Vishnu, and disciple of Shiv) became an important axe-wielding hero.
Based on the types of axes used by Neolithic settlers, we notice three different and important areas of Neolithic settlements - North-Western, North-eastern and Southern. The north-western group of Neolithic tools represents rectangular axes with curved cutting edge. The north-eastern group shows polished stone axes with rectangular butt and has occasional shouldered hoes. The southern group is distinguished by axes with oval sides and pointed butt.
In the north-west, the Kashmiri Neolithic culture was distinguished by its dwelling pits, the range of ceramics, the variety of stone and bone tools, and the complete absence of the microliths. An important site is that of Burzahom, which means 'the place of birth' and is situated 16 km north-west of Srinagar. The Neolithic people lived there on a lake-side in pits, and probably had a hunting and fishing economy. They seem to have been acquainted with agriculture. The people of Gufkral (literally the 'cave of the potter'), a Neolithic site 41 km south-west of Srinagar, practised both agriculture and domestication of animals. The Neolithic people in Kashmir used not only polished tools of stone, but what is more interesting - they used numerous tools and weapons made of bone. The only other place which has yielded considerable bone implements in India is Chirand, which is 40 km west of Patna on the northern side of the Ganga. Made of antlers (horns of deer), these implements have been found in a late Neolithic set-up in an area with about 100 cm rainfall. The settlement became possible because of the open land available on account of the joining together of the four rivers - Ganga, Sone, Gandak and Ghaghra at this place. It is marked by the paucity of stone tools.
The people of Burzahom used coarse grey pottery. It is interesting that the Burzahom domestic dogs were buried with their masters in their graves. Pit dwelling and the placing of domestic dogs in the graves of the masters do not seem to be the practice with Neolithic people in any other part of India. The earliest date for Burzahom is about 2400 B.C., but the bones recovered from Chirand cannot be dated earlier than 1600 B.C. and they possibly belong to a stone-copper phase.
The second group of Neolithic people lived in south India, south of the Godavari River. They usually settled on the tops of hills or on plateaus near the river banks. They used stone axes and also some kind of stone blades. Firebaked earthen figurines suggest that they kept a large number of cattle. They possessed cattle, sheep and goats. They used rubbing stone querns, which shows that they were acquainted with the art of producing cereals.
The third area from which Neolithic tools have been recovered is in the hills of Assam. Neolithic tools are also found in the Garo hills in Meghalaya on the north-eastern frontier of India. In addition to this, we also find a number of Neolithic settlements on the northern spurs of the Vindhyas in Mirzapur and Allahabad districts of Uttar Pradesh. Neolithic sites in Allahabad district are noted for the cultivation of rice in the sixth millennium B.C.
Some of the important Neolithic sites or those with Neolithic layers that have been excavated include Maski, Brahmagiri, Hallur, Kodekal, Sanganakallu, Narsipur and Takkalakota in Karnataka, and Paiyampalli in Tamil Nadu. Piklihal and Utnur are important Neolithic sites in Andhra Pradesh. The Neolithic phase in south India seems to have covered the period from about 2000 B.C. to 1000 B.C.
The Neolithic settlers in Piklihal were cattle-herders. They domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, etc. They set up seasonal camps surrounded by cowpens made with posts and stakes. In these enclosure they accumulated dung. Then the entire camping ground was put to fire and cleared for camping in the next session. Both ash mounds and habitation sites have been discovered in Brahmagiri, Hallur, Kodekal, Piklihal, Sanganakallu, T.Narsipur and Takkalakota in Karnataka, and Paiyampalli in Tamil Nadu.
The Neolithic settlers were the earliest farming communities. They broke the ground with stone hoes and digging sticks at the end of which ring stones weighing one to half a kilogram were fixed. Besides polished tools of stone, they used microlith blades. They lived in circular or rectangular houses made of mud and reed. It is held that the primitive people living in circular houses owned property in common. In any case these Neolithic people led a settled life. They produced ragi and horsegram (kulathi).
The Neolithic people of Mehrgarh were more advanced. They produced wheat, cotton, and lived in mud-brick houses.
Since in the Neolithic phase several settlements came to be acquainted with the cultivation of cereals and the domestication of animals, they needed pots in which they could store their foodgrains. They further needed pots for cooking, eating and drinking. Hence pottery first appears in this phase. Hand-made pottery is found in the early stage. Later the Neolithic people used footwheels to turn up pots. Their pottery included black burnished ware, grey ware, and mat-impressed ware.
Neolithic celts, axes, adzes, chisels, etc., have also been found in the Orissa and Chotanagpur hill areas. But traces of Neolithic settlements are generally few in parts of Madhya Pradesh and the tracts of the upper Deccan, because of the lack of those types of stone which lend themselves easily to grinding and polishing.
The period between 9000 B.C. and 3000 B.C. saw a remarkable progress of technology in Western Asia because the people developed the arts of cultivation, weaving, pot-making, house building, domestication of animals, etc. But the Neolithic Age in the Indian subcontinent began around the sixth millennium B.C. Some of the important crops, including rice, wheat and barley, came to be cultivated in the subcontinent in this period and a few villages appeared in this part of the world. It appears that the people were now on the threshold of civilization.
The people of the Stone Age suffered from one great limitation. Since they had to depend entirely on tools and weapons made of stone, they could not found settlements far away from the hilly areas. They could settle down only on the slopes of the hills, in rockshelters and the hilly River valleys. Further, even with great effort they could not produce more than what they needed for their bare subsistence.
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