NCERT Class 6 - Our Pasts I • NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part I

Prehistoric India: Stone Age Cultures

Prehistory is the long stretch before writing, known only from stone tools, animal bones and cave paintings. Indian prehistory is divided into Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic phases, followed by the Chalcolithic when copper joined stone. Food gathering slowly gave way to farming and herding.

The three stone age phases

• Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) - hunting and gathering only, no farming, no pottery. Tools were large hand-axes, cleavers and choppers made by chipping pebbles.
• Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) - marked by microliths, tiny stone blades fixed into wood or bone handles. Hunting continued but animal taming began.
• Neolithic (New Stone Age) - polished stone tools, farming, herding and pottery. Permanent huts and storage pits appear.
• Chalcolithic - copper tools used alongside stone; painted pottery and village settlements.
• The phases overlap. A Neolithic village and a Mesolithic hunting camp could exist at the same time in different regions.

Sites you must remember

• Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh) - rock shelters with prehistoric paintings of hunting scenes, dancing and animals. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Mehrgarh (in the Bolan valley, now in Pakistan) - one of the earliest farming villages of the subcontinent; evidence of wheat, barley, goat and sheep.
• Burzahom (Kashmir) - Neolithic pit dwellings dug into the ground, and burial of dogs with their masters.
• Chirand (Bihar) - Neolithic site on the Ganga, known for bone tools made from antler.
• Koldihwa and Mahagara (Uttar Pradesh) - evidence of early rice cultivation.
• Inamgaon (Maharashtra) - a large Chalcolithic settlement with granaries and burials under house floors.

Tool material and technique

• Most tools were made of quartzite, a hard rock, which is why Palaeolithic people are sometimes called the Quartzite Men.
• Tools were made either by removing flakes from a stone core, or by shaping the core itself.
• Grinding and polishing is the technical marker of the Neolithic - it gives a sharper, longer-lasting edge.
• Microliths were often hafted, that is, set into a wooden shaft with resin to make a sickle or an arrow.

How the Bhimbetka paintings look

NCERT shows these as line drawings on cave walls. Picture a rough rock ceiling covered with stick-like human figures in red and white. Hunters carry bows and spears; a large animal such as a bison or deer is shown much bigger than the people, surrounded on all sides. Other panels show rows of figures holding hands in a dance, and horse riders in the later layers. The red colour came from haematite (geru) and the white from limestone paste.