CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

SUBJECT: INDIAN HISTORY

TOPIC: NEOLITHIC AGE

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Dr. Priya Darshini Akshita Thapa
Faculty of Indian History Roll No.: 2106

Chanakya National Law University BA L.L.B. 1st Year

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 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project work entitled “Neolithic Age” submitted to the Chanakya
National Law University, is a record of an original work done by me under the guidance of Dr.
Priya Darshini, Faculty of Indian History, Chanakya National Law University , and this project
work is submitted in the fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
B.A.LL.B(Hons.) . The results embodied in this thesis have not been submitted to any other
University or Institute for the award of any degree or diploma.

Akshita Thapa

2106

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my faculty prof. Dr. Priya Darshini, whose guidance helped me a lot with
structuring my project.
I owe the present accomplishment of my project to my friends, who helped me immensely with
materials throughout the project and without whom I couldn’t have completed it in the present
way.
I would also like to extend my gratitude to my parents and all those unseen hands that helped
me out at every stage of my project.
Thank You .

Akshita Thapa
2106

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Table of Contents
DECLARATION ................................................................................................................... 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 1 .......................................................................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................ 7
World prehistory in general ....................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................ 8
The 3-Age system ...................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 4 .............................................................................................................................. 10
A rough chronology of world prehistory ................................................................................. 10
Chapter 5 .............................................................................................................................. 12
Architecture in the prehistoric world & prehistoric India ........................................................ 12
Chapter 6 .............................................................................................................................. 16
REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF NEOLITHIC CULTURES .............................................. 16
NORTH INDIA ............................................................................................................... 16
SOUTH INDIA ................................................................................................................ 17
CENTRAL INDIA ........................................................................................................... 18
Chapter 7 .............................................................................................................................. 19
DOMESTICATION ................................................................................................................. 19
Origins Of Domestication ................................................................................................ 19
Domestication Of Animals .................................................................................................. 20
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... 22

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The Neolithic age, also known as the “New Stone Age” (from the Greek, neo meaning new
and lithos, meaning stone), was a period of human prehistory beginning around 10,200 BC. It
ended with the Bronze Age, which occurred between 4500 and 2000 BCE, depending on the
civilization. It was during the Neolithic age that human beings invented permanent housing
structures.1

The Neolithic age began with agricultural revolution, when human beings invented farming.
Neolithic culture first emerged in the Levant, the area of modern day Israel and the West Bank,
between 10,200 and 8800 BCE. It was there that people first began cultivating wild cereals,
which evolved into farming. Faming communities then spread outward, to Mesopotamia, Asia
Minor, and North Africa. Neolithic farming was largely restricted to einkorn wheat, millet, and
spelt, but also included the domestication of dogs, sheep, and goats. Later, around 6900-6400
BCE, cattle and pigs were domesticated as well.

During the Neolithic age, humans lives in small tribal bands, with little scientific evidence
of social stratification, which developed in the Bronze Age. Most Neolithic groups continued
to be simple, egalitarian societies. It was the domestication of animals that provided the first

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increases in social inequality. The possession of animals became a sign of wealth, and those
who controlled larger herds were able to acquire more livestock, and gain more power.

The term ‘Neolithic’ implies a stage of development of the Stone Age cultures in which there
was a qualitative change in the manufacture and use of stone tools. The term denotes a cultural
or economic stage – characterised by the change from hunting to farming economy – when
man learnt not only to smoothen his stone tools by different methods but had begun to produce
his own food, domesticate various animals, make pottery and adopt a settled life instead of
moving from place to place in small groups.

The concluding phase of the Stone Age, the Neolithic Age, heralds the beginning of food
production. There was a transition from hunting to food gathering to food production. The most
essential characteristic of a Neolithic culture was the use of ground stone tools. There were
innovations in stone and tool technology such as making of ground, pecked, and polished stone
tools. There was advent of food production, invention of pottery, division of labour based on
sex, a great degree of sedentary living, and emergence of small and relatively self-sufficient
village communities. Changes in stone tools led to shifts in subsistence strategies. The graves
were covered with megaliths as a mark of respect for the dead. Man started producing cereals
like rice, wheat, barley, green gram and lentil, etc. and started cooking food. Art of worship,
magic, tribal tradition, caste or class system, had been fully developed. Town had been
developed and cattle breeding had been domesticated. Fishing, hunting, ornament making, and
trade had started. The works of making pottery, hearts, figurines and toys and the art of dyeing
had also started. Neolithic society had the potential to increase supply and thus to support a
growing population.

Domestication of plants and animals has been considered as one of

the main characteristic features of the Neolithic culture. It led to emergence of village
communities based on sedentary life, beginnings of agriculture technology, and greater control
over nature by exploitation of natural resources. It marked a special kind of human interference
in nature and a new stage in the relationship b/w people, plants and animals. Domestication of
animals led to the development of pastoral stage of life.

• V. Gorden Childe defined the Neolithic culture as a self-sufficient food producing economy.
His presumption is that farming was first invented in a single ‘nuclear region’ – the Fertile

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Crescent in Mesopotamia or the Near East from where it spread to other parts of the world. In
addition, he designated the Neolithic phase as the Neolithic revolution, which was later argued
by his critics that this phase should be viewed as a ‘transformation’ or ‘evolution’, rather than
a ‘revolution’.

• Miles Burkitt stressed that the following characteristic traits - practice of agriculture,
domestication of animals, grinding and polishing of stone tools, and the manufacture of pottery,
should be considered to represent the Neolithic culture.

• R. S. Sharma - divided the Neolithic settlements into three groups – northwestern, north-
eastern and southern, based on the types of axes used by the Neolithic settlers.

• V. K. Jain argues for as many as six different geographical regions, each with its own
distinctive features and chronological time span. These regions are - North, North-western,
Central India, Mid – Gangetic basin, Eastern India, and Peninsular or South India.

Chapter 2

World prehistory in general

Prehistory concerns itself with the period of human existence before the availability of written
records with which recorded history begins (Renfrew 2007). It is thus a study of those pre-
literate societies of our earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors and the progress – technological and
otherwise, as they domesticated animals, gradually mastered agriculture, and settled down in
the earliest settlements, villages and towns. It follows the development of some of these
settlements into centralised human societies and the emergence of the first great civilisations
of the world. Prehistory also deals with smaller communities in some parts of the world that
continued their hunter-gatherer lifestyles or as agro-pastoralists without developing into urban
centres.

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The story of this progress from the earliest hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the diversity of human
activity today encompasses a vast span of time and is not uniform in different parts of the
world. This chapter will deal with an overview of world prehistory in general and the prehistory
of the Indian subcontinent. It is important to note that our knowledge of prehistory – of the fact
that the history of human origins goes back much further than the earliest evidences from
recorded history, has been obtained in the last two hundred years. In early 1806, Sir Richard
Colt Hoare excavated burial mounds and barrows in England and Ireland and was frustrated
that the origins of the ―tribes that built these structures were shrouded in mystery (Renfrew
2007). Though as far back as 1774 Johann Esper – a German priest had found remains of cave
bears and other extinct animals in association with human remains, it was the Frenchman
Jacques Boucher de Perthes, who in 1846 through his publication of his finds of human
artefacts like stone tools found in association to the remains of extinct animals, seriously
considered this as evidence of the antiquity of man. The work that set the academic mood to
receive this knowledge was undoubtedly Charles Darwin‘s seminal works – On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 and Descent of Man in 1871 (Kennedy 2000,
Renfrew 2007). The term ―prehistory‖ was first used, in 1851, by Daniel Wilson, in his work
The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. The term was given wider coverage by
Sir John Lubbock‘s Prehistoric Times, published in 1865 (Kennedy 2000, Renfrew 2007).

Chapter 3

The 3-Age system

It was the work of the Danish antiquarian Christian Jurgensen Thomsen, in charge of arranging
the pre-Roman antiquities at the National Museum of Copenhagen who recognized the
diversity of prehistoric artefacts and hit upon the idea of the three ages in prehistory (Kennedy
2000, Renfrew 2007). His guidebook to the National Museum published in 1836 (and translated
into English in 1848), that introduced the idea of the three age system to the academic world.
He had grouped the prehistoric artefacts in the possession of the museum into three groups
based on the material of manufacture of these weapons and implements – which he recognized
as three ages of stone, bronze and iron. He regarded these ages as a representation of

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chronological succession. 2By then, the science of stratigraphy had been established by the
work of the Italian geologist Giovanni Arduino – who classified their succession into Primary,
Secondary and Tertiary age groups and the British engineer William Smith, who in 1816
published Strata Identified by Organized Fossils.

The Stone Age was initially divided into an earlier period of chipped stone tools and a later
period of ground or polished stone tools by John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) and he termed these
Palaeolithic and Neolithic respectively, in his book Prehistoric Times, published in 1865
(Kennedy 2000).

Later, in the course of the discovery and study of several sites like Laugerie Haute, Les Eyzies,
Le Moustier and La Madeleine in France by Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy in the mid-
1800, it emerged that the Palaeolithic was not a single homogeneous period, but a sequence of
prehistoric phases marked by faunal changes and changes in the lithic industries (Kennedy
2000, Renfrew 2007). The Stone Age was thus divided into The Upper, Middle and Lower
Palaeolithic, with further sub-divisions . These terms were coined to represent periods of time
initially, but later came to be understood as cultures.

Stone tools smaller than the trademark Palaeoliths, known as microliths, were increasingly
found in many deposits overlying Palaeolithic stone assemblages, which were ascribed to a
period between the late Palaeolithic and early Neolithic by De Mortillet in 1883. This period
was given the term Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) by John Allen Brown in 1892. Brown
further suggested that the Mesolithic was the transitional period from hunting-gathering to
food-producing cultures of Europe.

Even though the concepts of prehistory outlined above had been conceived and classified
in the European context, many scholars believed that these periods of prehistory had universal
significance and ―represented necessary stages of human cultural development from savagery
to civilization‖ (Kennedy 2000). The basis of this view was the ―psychic unity of mankind‖,
which was the explanation for the parallel development of the same archaeological sequences
in different parts of the world. The other, competing viewpoint was the ―migration theory‖,
which had invasions of populations from the centres of invention into other areas, bringing in

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technological and other inputs that precipitated cultural shifts. Prehistorians who favoured this
view quoted the abrupt transformations in the archaeological record to support their thesis and
interpreted that as mass movements of ancient populations. The extension of prehistoric studies
into the continents of Asia and Africa was made with the assumption that the cultural periods
and chronologies which were already defined for European prehistoric cultures could be
directly applied to the archaeological records in these continents.

Though the broad elements of the framework for looking at prehistoric cultural succession still
survive in prehistoric research today, the advent of objective dating systems, more
sophisticated and systematic practices in archaeological excavation and identifications of
technological industries and associated cultural periods have led to a detailed understanding of
schemes for different geographical regions (Kennedy 2000). Today, it is understood that the
stratigraphic sequences of a Palaeolithic site in Europe need not be exactly paralleled in a site
from the same period in south-east Asia. Similarly, even the broad categories of Palaeolithic,
Mesolithic and Neolithic etc. are not satisfactory in many contexts. For instance, strictly
speaking, there is no purely Neolithic site in any of the excavated sites in India (Rao 1978).
And, since there is evidence of the use of copper and/or bronze at all excavated sites in
Karnataka that are from the cultural phase when man lived a settled life with domesticated
animals and practice of agriculture and the manufacture of pottery, it is common for many
researchers to refer to this phase as ―Neolithic-Chalcolithic‖. These regional expressions of
early copper-using cultures thus have names not used in Europe or elsewhere. This existence
of a ―Copper Age‖ prior to the onset of a Bronze Age is not universal in antiquity, and the
early copper-using people do not share identical cultural elements (Kennedy 2000).

Chapter 4

A rough chronology of world prehistory

The Stone Age (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic) was followed by the Bronze Age in
most parts of the world (Though, as we have seen, in southern India, there seems to have been
copperusing cultures in the Neolithic, if we take it to mean the cultural phase when agriculture
and settled life began) and later the Iron Age. Script or writing makes an appearance in the
Bronze Age in many parts of the world and, by the end of the Iron Age, prehistory merges into

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recorded history in most parts of the world. Some researchers prefer the term ―protohistory‖
to refer to those periods when literacy was available, but little used or little evidence for literacy
survives (Renfrew 2007). Roman Britain or early days of literate civilizations in Mesopotamia
and Egypt may be called protohistoric (Renfrew 2007), as possibly the Neolithic-Chalcolithic
and the Iron Age in south India (Rao 1978).

The periods following the Iron Age is literate in most parts of the world and hence the
beginning of recorded history in these regions.

Following is the chronology of the Neolithic Revolution(from Habib 2001) :

 10,000-9000 BC Earliest Neolithic culture: Naturfian of Palestine and Syria

 10,000-7500 BC Neolithic culture, north Afghanistan: pre-ceramic
 7000-5000 BC Neolithic culture, Mehrgarh, Period I: pre-ceramic; barley,
wheat cultivated
 5365-2650 BC Bagor Mesolithic, Period I: pre-ceramic
 5000 BC China, Vietnam, Thailand: rice domesticated
 5000-4000 BC Mehrgarh, Period II: hand-made ceramic, cotton cultivated
 4300-3800 BC Mehrgarh, Period III: copper-smelting; ‗Togau pottery‘
 4000 BC Mehrgarh: potter‘s wheel
 3800-3200 BC Neolithic Kechi-Beg and Hakra-ware cultures: wheel-made
pottery 3385-2780 BC Belan Mesolithic: hand-made ceramic
 3500-1200 BC Vindhyan Neolithic: mainly hand-made ceramic; rice
cultivated
 3000-2100 BC South Indian Neolithic: mainly hand-made ceramic
 3000-1900 BC Swat Neolithic: ceramic; wheat, barley cultivated
 2800-2500 BC Northern (Kashmir) Neolithic, Phase I: pre-ceramic
 2500-2000 BC Northern (Kashmir) Neolithic, Phase II: hand-made ceramic;
wheat, barley, lentils cultivated
 2500(?)-2000 BC Eastern Neolithic, Pandu Rajar Dhib, Period I: hand-made
ceramic; rice cultivated

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  2100-1400 BC Neolithic Chirand, Period I; hand-made ceramic; rice
cultivated

Chapter 5

Architecture in the prehistoric world & prehistoric India

The earliest habitations of ancient human populations in the Palaeolithic seem to

have been primarily caves and rock-shelters, though there is some evidence for shelters in
camps in the open (Thapar 2002). The latter were made of branches and foliage; so much
evidence would not survive. But evidence for occupation of caves and rock-shelters abound at
many places in the world. The practice of decorating cave walls and ceilings with engravings
or paintings is seen from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards (Mithen 1996, Lewis-Williams 2002).
8 The construction of dwellings for a settled village life is widely believed to have followed
the advent of agriculture, though it is known now that at least at a few sites like those of the
Early Natufian culture in the Levant (see Table 1.2), the world‘s first settled villages preceded
the establishment of a secure agricultural regime (Renfrew 2007). The culture had pit
dwellings, burials, rich stone and bone industries, mobile art and numerous tools for processing
food grains – though it was still dependent on foraging. So, the evidence from these sites is
clear that a markedly sedentary life style preceded farming, though it was dependent upon the
availability of abundant wild food resources.

The shift from the mobile life pattern of the hunter-gatherers society to a sedentary
one in the earliest settled societies is not a simple shift but one with very significant
consequences (Renfrew 2007). Early settled societies implied living in one place for several
years at a time, if not on a permanent basis. This involves a substantial investment of labour
and materials into the construction of a permanent place of residence. This adoption of the
house as the permanent context of social and economic life also heralded new ways of thinking.
―The adoption of the house and the village also ushers in a development of the structure of
social life, the elaboration of thinking about the structure of the world and the strengthening of
the links between the two.‖ (Wilson 1988)The earliest villages seem to have been ―egalitarian‖
societies, with little or no evidence for stratification of the society. The houses are more or less

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uniform in a village. There is evidence for collective endeavour on a considerable scale –
whether for irrigation projects or for the construction of monuments, such as the substantial
stone structures called megaliths in various parts of the world. The megaliths of north-western
Europe, the structures termed ―temples‖ in prehistoric Malta etc. are examples of this (Sherratt
1990, Ruggles 1999, Hoskin 2001, Renfrew .

In most of the early agricultural societies, it is clear that the settlement pattern
was sometimes a dispersed one of single homesteads or small groups of houses, which were
built of perishable materials like timber, wattle and daub and thatch and which frequently went
out of use after a few years. In this context, the erection of stone monuments – whether burials
or for other purposes, seems to have provided an element of permanence that the domestic
settlement itself did not offer (Renfrew 2007). This has probably led to the myth of the mutual
exclusiveness of 9 non-domestic funerary as well as other monuments and substantial traces of
domestic settlements in India (Moorti 2008) and other parts of the world (Sherratt 1990).
Domestic architecture in the Neolithic varies from the pit dwellings of Burzahom (Sharma
2000) to the timber-and-sod houses of the British Neolithic at places like Fengate and
Honington (Castleden 1987) to the stone houses of Orkney and Shetland (Castleden 1987). Of
the last named, the splendidly preserved site of Skara Brae is a testament to the skills of the
Neolithic house builder.

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 In the early hunter-gatherer societies of the Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic, habitations were
mostly in caves and rock shelters like at Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh or Sanghao cave in
north-west Pakistan or Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh (Allchin and Allchin 1996, Thapar 2002).
There is lesser evidence for habitations in camps in the open, since these were built of
perishable material like timber and foliage. As mentioned earlier, many of the rock shelters
inhabited especially during Mesolithic and later times have been decorated with rock art. At
sites like Bhimbetka, where a few rock art panels date back to the Palaeolithic and occupation
as well as the tradition of rock art continued well into the Early Historic period (Thapar 2002),
it is possible to see a record of lifestyles as seen through the eye of artists of those periods –
the earliest scenes depict the hunting of animals while the latest depict scenes of elephants and
horses in processions, battles etc.

There are instances of intentional extended burials with mostly east-west orientations for the
bodies during the Mesolithic, occasionally within the habitation area, with the interment of
grave-goods such as microliths, shells, pendants etc. perhaps pointing towards an idea of
afterlife (Allchin and Allchin 1996, Thapar 2002).

The settlements of the Neolithic had a variety of dwelling types. The earliest phase of
Neolithic Burzahom (before c. 2920BC) hadwhat appear to be pit dwellings, with post-holes
around the perimeter on the surface indicating conical thatch roofs over posts (see Fig.1.4). The
floor and walls of the pits were often mud-plastered and the pits are usually narrow at the top
and widen towards the base.

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Later periods of the Neolithic at Burzahom left traces of circular as well as rectangular houses
of mud and rubble or mud-brick, sometimes with mud plaster (Allchin and Allchin 1996,
Sharma 2000). Burzahom and a few other Neolithic sites in Kashmir, like Gurfkral, have large
menhirs associated with a later megalithic phase, which has been interpreted as due to the
arrival of ―megalithic people‖ at the site, though the antiquities recovered from this megalithic
phase are seen to be similar to those of the preceding Neolithic (Sharma 2000). This has been
in turn 19 interpreted as proof that the Megalithic newcomers co-existed with the Neolithic
occupants of the site, who continued their traditions and culture and that the two cultures ―got
assimilated in each other in course of time.‖ The Megalithic phase in Kashmir seems
unconnected to that in peninsular India and also might have occurred earlier (Sharma 2000).
There are instances of burials with domestic dogs interred with their masters at Burzahom.

Houses in other Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites in the subcontinent, such as Ahar near Udaipur,
Navdatoli on the banks of the Narbada near Maheshwar show traces of houses either oblong or
round in plan, with walls of stone and mud or mud brick and possibly wattle and daub.
Chalcolithic settlements in Maharashtra, such as Nevasa, Daimabad, Chandoli etc. had
rectangular houses with wooden frames and wattle and daub infill or circular shallow pits with
post-holes around. They had cooking hearths and storage areas and shallow hollowed bases for
standing pots (Allchin and Allchin 1996). Extended burials were characteristic of the early
phase with multiple urns, often mouth-to-mouth holding selected bones or skeletal remains of
children being seen during the course of the second millennium BC.

The early phase of the Neolithic of southern India starting about 3000BC is associated with
the ashmound sites like Kupgal and Utnur in Andhra Pradesh and Piklihal in Karnataka. The
ashmounds may have been cattle pens used for capturing wild cattle and/or herding of domestic
cattle thereafter, with periodic firing for hygiene or ritual purposes (Allchin and Allchin 1996)
but their role as monumental structures in those early societies are also conjectured (Johansen,
2004, Bauer, Johansen and Bauer 2007). This phase was followed by one of settlements of a
more permanent nature on the slopes and tops of granite hills, lasting from c. 2100BC to c.
1700BC. These settlements consisted of circular hutments of wattle and daub on wooden
frames, with earthen floors. The next phase, which lasted till the Iron Age, is characterised by
developments similar to the Chalcolithic in Maharashtra, with circular huts utilizing larger
boulders as building material. Burials were extended inhumations, with urn burials similar to
Maharashtra for infants. All burials were within habitation areas.

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 Chapter 6

REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF NEOLITHIC CULTURES

NORTH INDIA

Evidence for the north Indian Neolithic cultures comes mainly from the Kashmir Valley and
is represented by a large number of sites above the flood plains of River Jhelum. The three
principal sites of the area are Burzahom (northeast of Srinagar), Gufkral (southeast of
Srinagar), and Kanishkapura (Baramulla district). An important feature of the northern
Neolithic is the absence of a preceding Mesolithic phase and the development of this
phenomenon occurred between 3500 - 1500 B.C.

• The Neolithic people of Burzahom, beginning with Period I around 2700 B.C., lived in
circular or oval-shaped lakeside pit dwellings and subsisted on hunting and fishing economy,
being familiar also with agriculture. The sides of the dwelling pits were plastered with mud
and both ladders and steps were used to get inside the large pits. Storage pits containing animal
bones, stone, and bone tools have been found close to the dwelling pits. The site has yielded
mostly coarse and handmade grey, buff, and red pottery. The bone industry at Burzahom is
most developed of all the Neolithic cultures of India and comprises harpoons, needles,
arrowheads, spear-joints, daggers etc. Another distinctive feature is the burials – graves, both
of humans and animals, especially dogs, have been found. Sketchy evidence for ritual practice

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can be gathered from stone slabs depicting hunting scenes, or another representation of the sun
and a dog

. • The site of Gufkral, meaning the ‘cave of the potter’, started as an aceramic Neolithic site,
probably around 3000 B.C. From Period IA were discovered large dwelling pits surrounded by
storage pits and hearths and with post-holes around the mouths of the pits and hearths. Remains
of barley, wheat and lentil along with wild sheep, goat and cattle, deer, ibex, wolf and bear
indicate the transition from hunting to a food producing economy. Polished stone tools,
including a large quern, bone/horn tools, steatite beads and a terracotta ball make up the rest of
the archaeological repertoire. Periods IB and IC witnessed an intensification of the Neolithic –
handmade crude grey ware followed by wheel-made pottery, abundance of stone querns,
pounders, double-holed harvesters etc along with domesticated sheep, goat, cattle, dog and pig.

SOUTH INDIA

The South Indian Neolithic culture has given the largest number of Neolithic settlements
because of the easy availability of stone. The issue of ash mounds and the location of
settlements on the flat-topped or castellated granite hills or plateaux of the region makes the
south Indian Neolithic remarkable.

• South Indian Neolithic culture has been classified into three phases by archaeologists.
Excavated sites, which throw light on the various aspects of the Neolithic culture, of the south
India are Sangankallu, Nagarjunakonda, Maski, Brahmagiri, Tekkalakota, Piklihal, Kupgal,
Hallur, Palavoy, Hemmige and T. Narsipur. The earliest phases are represented at Sangankallu
and Nagarjunakonda. The faint traces of dwellings, crude handmade pale reddish brown pottery
with slipped outer surface, blade tools of chert and ground stone tools found at
Nagarjunakonda, demonstrate that the people had only rudimentary knowledge of cultivation.
In Phase II, the pottery is mainly of red ware fabric. In Phase III (1500 B.C.) grey ware pottery,
is predominant. The red ware and short blade industry of quartz crystals of Phase I1 continued
into this phase. Neolithic tools of various types are also found in this phase. These indicate
greater practice of agriculture with food gathering and hunting now assuming a subsidiary role.

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Abundance of cattle and other kinds of food articles suggest sedentary agriculture – cum –
pastoral economy of the Neolithic people. The nature of animal bones found from the
excavations indicates that the animals were used for draught-work or putting heavy material,
and ploughing the fields. It is clear from the excavations at Nagarjunakonda that domestication
of plants preceded the domestication of animals. Domesticated animals like cattle, sheep and
goat, buffalo, ass, fowl, swine and horse are also reported. Sambhar deer, bara singha, spotted
deer and gazelle were hunted and pond snails and tortoise were caught for food by the people.

CENTRAL INDIA

The focus of the Central Indian neolithic is the Vindhyan and Kaimur hill ranges of Uttar
Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The important neolithic sites are Koldihawa and Mahagara in
Allahabad district, Sinduria in Mirzapur district and Kunjun in the Sidhi district of Madhya
Pradesh.

• Situated in the Belan valley of Uttar Pradesh, Koldihawa claim to fame is the earliest evidence
of rice. The overlap of the Microlithic and the Neolithic is testified by the presence of blades,
flakes, lunates as well as polished and ground axes, celts, querns and pestles. Evidence of
animal husbandry comes from the bones of cattle, sheep, goat, and deer and fishing can be
gleaned from the bones of turtles and fish. G. R. Sharma has dated rice cultivation at Koldihawa
to around 5500 B.C. Other scholars like F. R. Allchin and D. K. Chakrabarti feel that these
dates need to be re-examined based on fresh evidence.

• The site of Mahagara has yielded some bone implements along with a tool kit of Mesolithic
and Neolithic tools made of materials such as chalcedony, agate, quartz, and basalt. This site
has also reported a cattle pen, which indicates the domestication of cattle. The pottery used by
the Neolithic folk was handmade and poorly fired; with straw and rice husk being used as
tempering agents. The principal pottery type is the corded or cord-impressed ware though
sometimes incised designs are also seen.

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 Chapter 7

DOMESTICATION

Domestication, the process of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into
domestic and cultivated forms according to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers
to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. The fundamental distinction
of domesticated animals and plants from their wild ancestors is that they are created by human
labour to meet specific requirements or whims and are adapted to the conditions of continuous
care and solicitude people maintain for them.
Domestication has played an enormous part in the development of humankind and material
culture. It has resulted in the appearance of agriculture as a special form of animal
and plant production. It is precisely those animals and plants that became objects of agricultural
activity that have undergone the greatest changes when compared with their wild ancestors

Origins Of Domestication

The first attempts at domestication of animals and plants apparently were made in the Old
World during the Mesolithic Period. Dogs were first domesticated in Central Asia by at least
15,000 years ago by people who engaged in hunting and gathering wild edible plants. The first
successful domestication of plants, as well as goats, cattle, and other animals—which heralded
the onset of the Neolithic Period—occurred sometime before 9500 BCE.

Domestication of vegetatively reproducing plants, such as those with tubers, probably preceded
domestication of the seed plants—cereals, legumes, and other vegetables. Some plants were
domesticated for the strong fibres in their stalks, which were used for such purposes as
making fishing nets. Hemp, one of the most ancient plants domesticated in India, is an example
of a multipurpose plant: oil is obtained from its seeds, fibres from its stalk, and
the narcotic hashish from its flowers and leaves.

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Some plants were domesticated especially for the production of narcotics; such a plant
is tobacco, which was probably first used by American Indian tribes for the preparation of a
narcotic drink and only later for smoking. The opium poppy is another example of a plant
domesticated solely for a narcotic. Beverage plants of many kinds were discovered and
cultivated, including tea, coffee, and cola. Only when humans reached a sufficiently high level
of culture did they begin to domesticate to fulfill aesthetic requirements for the beautiful and
the bizarre in both plants and animals.

Domestication Of Animals

The specific economic application of domesticated animals did not appear at

once. Dogs probably accompanied hunters and helped them hunt wild animals; they probably
also guarded human settlements and warned the inhabitants of possible danger. At the same
time, they were eaten by humans, which was probably their main importance during the first
stages of domestication. Sheep and goats were also eaten in the initial stages of domestication
but later became valuable for producing the commodities of milk and wool.

The principal aim of cattle breeding in ancient times was to obtain meat and skin and to produce
work animals, which greatly contributed to the development of agriculture. Cattle, at the initial
stages of domestication, produced a small amount of milk, sufficient only to rear their calves.
The development of high milk yield in cows with their breeding especially for milk production
is a later event in the history of domestication.

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The first domesticated horses were also used for meat and skin. Later the horse played an
enormous role in the waging of war. Peoples inhabiting the Middle East in the 2nd
millennium BCE used horses in chariot battles. With time the horse began to be used as
transportation. In the 1st millennium BCE carts appeared, and the horses were harnessed to
them; other riding equipment, including the saddle and the bit, seems to have appeared in later
centuries.
The donkey and the camel were used only for load transport and as means of conveyance; their
unpalatability ruled out their use as a preferred food.
The first domesticated hens perhaps were used for sport. Cockfighting was instrumental in
bringing about the selection of these birds for larger size. Cocks later acquired religious
significance. In Zoroastrianism the cock was associated with protection of good against evil
and was a symbol of light. In ancient Greece it was also an object of sacrifice to gods. It is
probable that egg production of the first domesticated hens was no more than five to ten eggs
a year; high egg yield and improved meat qualities of hens developed at later stages of
domestication.
Early domestication of the cat was probably the result of the pleasure experienced from keeping
this animal. The cat’s ability to catch mice and rats was surely another reason that impelled
people to keep cats at home. In ancient Egypt the cat was considered a sacred animal.
Some animals were domesticated for utilitarian purposes from the very beginning. Here
belongs, first of all, the rabbit, whose real domestication was carried out from the 6th to the
10th century CE by French monks. The monks considered newborn rabbits “fish” and ate them
when the church calendar indicated abstinence from meat.
For the sake of honey, the bee was domesticated at the end of the Neolithic Period. Honey has
played an enormous role in human nutrition since ancient times; it ceased being the
sole sweetening agent only about 200 years ago. Bees also provided wax and bee venom, which
was used as medicine. Bees were used also, to a limited extent, in warfare, hives being thrown
among enemy troops to rout them.
To obtain silk, the silkworm was domesticated in China no later than 3000 BCE, and by
1000 BCE the technology of silkworm breeding and raising had been thoroughly documented.
Shepherdy and nomadic animal breeding, which determined the social and economic
organization and the way of life of some peoples to a great extent, appeared at later stages of
human development, after the accumulation of a large number of domestic animals. Rudiments
of nomadic animal breeding in Eurasia appeared no earlier than 1000 BCE, considerably after
the domestication of animals took place.
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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/6579/9/09_chapter%201.pdf

 https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/the-neolithic-age-1430564528-1

 https://www.ancient.eu/Neolithic/

 https://www.britannica.com/event/Neolithic

 https://study.com/academy/lesson/neolithic-age-definition-characteristics-time-
period.html

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