PRE HISTORY in india

Palaeolithic Age:

To begin with the Palaeolithic Age was also called the old stone age covered the long period from the time the first ancestors of modern human beings started living in the Indian subcontinent from roughly 3 lakh B.C to 8000 or eighth millennium B.C.Archeologists divide it into three phases -the Lower or Early, the middle and the upper Palaeolithic age-according to the nature of the stone tools used by the people.

Mesolithic Age:

Then came the Mesolithic age also known as the late Stone Age which broadly covered the period from the eighth to fourth millennium BC.It is the intermediate or transitional stage between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic age. The tools of this age are called microliths. Neolithic Age: Third is the Neolithic age or the new Stone Age that covered the period roughly from 4000 to 1800 BC and was marked by the use of polished stone tools. Chalcolithic Age: Stone-copper age covered the period from

Neolithic or the New Stone Age:

The main period of the Neolithic Age in the Indian subcontinent was 4000-1800 BC. This was the food producing age when man completely changed his way of life. Traces of Neolithic communities have survived mostly in the north-western region and the Deccan. Neolithic settlements in Baluchistan seem to be oldest around 3500 BC. In the new way of life man began to domesticate animals and cultivate plants. The dog, sheep and goat were probably the first to be domesticated. 

Among plants, wheat and barley were the earliest cereals grown. As a result man began to settle down in certain selected areas. This led to the growth of villages and farming communities. The tools he needed also changed. All these developments took place first in north western India and culminated in the rise and growth of great Indus Civilization while the rest of the Indian subcontinent was late in undergoing the transition from Mesolithic to the Neolithic and then to the Chalcolithic periods.

Iron Age The early history of Iron in India can be examined in terms of different regional contexts through the study of the various iron-using areas of the subcontinent. The chronology of iron differs from one area to another but between the period 1000BC and 500 BC its use said to spread to all major areas- The upper Ganges valley and its peripheries Malwa plateau and Tapti valley South and Central Indian megalithic areas Baluchistan plains Middle and Lower Ganges valleys North west mainly Peshawar region In the Upper Ganges valley and the Indo Gangetic divide iron is first found associated around 800 BC with a culture known as Painted Greyware. Its use was sparse in the beginning but by the middle of the 6th century BC it had become fairly common and was associated with the new Northern Black Polished Ware culture. During this period its horizon expanded to include the central and lower Ganges valley where it marked a significant break from the earlier cultures. In the Malwa region and Tapti valley too it sites such as Nagda, Eran and Prakash, iron brought in an element of change in the earlier Chalcolithic cultures and it is possible that the use of iron was slightly earlier in this region (1000 BC) than in the Ganges Valley. At Hallur in north Karnataka iron appears to overlap the Neolithic implements of 900 BC

Impact of Iron

Iron brought in a change of economy, the characteristic feature of advanced type of agriculture. In the Ganges Valley and in the Malwa region iron led to the rise of urban areas. Both Brahmanical and Buddhist texts are full with reference to cities during the middle of the first millennium BC and at sites like Ahichhatra, Varanasi, Kausambi, Sravasti and Ujjayini the evidences of Iron age urbanization is available. 

By the middle of the 6th century BC some of these settlements had reached the proportions of urban centres. This suggests that for the first time since the decline of the Harappan civilization a substantial agricultural surplus which could sustain such urban centres had emerged. The use of silver and copper coins in large numbers during this period implies considerable trade and commerce. Some of the urban centres were also seats of political power as suggested by defence arrangements in some of them. Thus a political system with definable territorial units as its bases had developed by this time.

Sources of prehistory

Unlike the more advanced stages for which various types of sources are available the study of the initial stages of human history is based entirely on the material remains left by early man. The period is referred when man was primarily a food gatherer or had just begun a settled life and for which no written records are available. The material remains of early man is available mostly in the form of stone tools and sometimes with the remains of animals that he hunted do not speak comprehensively about his life.

The basic information provided by the tools of the early man, his habitat and observed facts about communities still in the initial stages of societal development have led to certain conclusions about variations even in the earliest cultures and the cultural zones.

Neolithic Phase

Neolithic Phase The Neolithic transition involved less a technological revolution than one in land use. After millennia of success as hunters and food gatherers people settled down to village life as farmers or stockbreeders. It cannot be coincidental that this process of settling down and tending to wheat, barley, cattle, sheep and goat species is first found in South Asia at a site in a frontier region, Mehrgarh. There was no particular period in South Asia when hunters and gatherers took to agriculture and animal rearing. The Neolithic stage appeared in different regions at different times in each case with a unique stone and ceramic technology and range of domesticates. 

Neolithic cultures in the Jhelum valley and in the Garo and North Cachar hills exhibit a frontier character with artefactual links with cultures outside the subcontinent. On the other hand in Orissa we may have mingling of traditions from the northeast and the Deccan plateau. Like the Kachhi plain the region comprising the Belan valley at the edge of the Vindhya plateau and the adjoining Ganga plain around Allahabad is an important zone.

Chalcolithic Phase

After the Harappan civilization we have a sequence of Chalcolithic cultures which span the second millennium BC and extend geographically from the Banas and Berach basins northeast of Udaipur through Malwa and into western Maharashtra up to the Bhima valley. Stratigraphy at key sites such as Dangwada and Kayatha near Ujjain and Daimabad on the Pravara shows that the Kayatha culture was succeeded by the Banas, Malwa and Jorwe cultures in turn. These cultures exhibit some similarities in subsistence economies, house form, flaked stone tools, and limited use of copper. Thus it is possible to consider a process of cultural development and transmission of ideas for about a millennium along the important marshland of west-central India which gave access to the productive basins of the Krishna and Tungabhadra where settlements of the southern Neolithic flourished.