Anthropology: Test Series

IAS 2022
ANTHROPOLOGY
TEST SERIES
By: Dr. Sudhir Kumar
TEST: 1
www.iasscore.in
Anthropology Test Series 2022
TEST - 01
ANTHROPOLOGY
Time Allowed: 3 Hrs. Max. Marks: 250
1. Write short notes on the following in about 150 words:

(a) Discuss whether anthropology is a social science or natural science.
(b) Absolute dating Methods
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(c) Natufian culture OR
(d) New Archaeology Movement
(e) Ethno-archaeology as a research strategy
2. Attempt all the questions:
(a) Give a broad outline of Paleolithic culture emphasizing on its tool technology.
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(b) What is Megalithic Culture? Discuss the Megalithic Cultures of India with reference
to North-east India.
(c) Examine the debates related to Ramapithecus
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(a) What is Archaeological Anthropology? Critically discuss the scope of Archaeology

and its main divisions.
(b) Discuss the main features of prehistoric rock art of Central India.
(c) Delineate the salient characteristics of Narmada man and examine its phylogenetic
significance.
4. Write short notes on the following in about 150 words:
(a) Relationship between Social anthropology and behavioral sciences.
(b) Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis
(c) Relevance of Physical Anthropology
(d) Neolithic Culture of NE India
(e) Neolithic is called revolution not evolution. Why?
(a) Define anthropology. Discuss its relevance in Contemporary India.
(b) Discuss the relationship between sociology and anthropology.
(c) Discuss the characteristic features of Civilization with reference to Harappan culture.
Anthropology [1]
Anthropology Test Series 2022
TEST - 01
ANTHROPOLOGY
Ans
Answwer Hints
1. (a) Discuss whether anthropology is a social science or natural science.
Approach
1. Anthropology as a Natural or Social Science:
• Study of Man-Biological-Natural Science.
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• Study of Society and Culture- Social Science
• Context or culture-specific- Social Science
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• Universal- Natural Science
• Objectivity in data collection through the face-to-face method and participant
observation through field visits, closer to science.
• Malinowski- stands in Between the two
• Brown, Nadel-- natural Science- Universal, not specific to a culture.
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• Kroeber, Bidney, Pritchard, Benedict- Historical and social science.

• Robert Redfield- Holistic Tendencies on rise.
• Eric Wolf- It is the most humanistic of all sciences and most scientific of all humanities.
Hints:
Anthropology is a unique discipline that combines both natural and social sciences and sits at the
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junction of various social sciences- sociology, psychology, history, literature etc.

As a science:
1. When anthropology studies the biological aspect of man and when it applies the scientific
methods and focuses on generalisations, it seems closer to the biological sciences and other
natural sciences
2. Classical Evolutionists, such as, Tylor, Morgan and Frazer, propounded for the scientific
nature of anthropology, while making cross-cultural generalisations using the deductive
methods.
3. After them, R. Brown argued that anthropology is similar to natural sciences because it
doesn’t deal with particular cultures, rather it is cross-cultural, it deals with generalisations.
Criticism:
a. It hasn’t produced a rigorous deductive technique like the marginal utility in economics
b. It has not covered a new body of data such as unconscious motives in psychoanalysis
c. It hasn’t invented any systematic empirical methods like in sociology
d. It doesn’t have an exclusive subject matter
As a social science:
1. This argument of anthropology as a science was rejected by the likes of A.L.Kroeber, Bidney
and Prtichard, who emphasized on historical studies and study of particular cultures.
2. Pritchard equated anthropology to historiography.
3. Anthro studies the social aspects of humans- culture, society, political systems, economic
systems. Therefore, it should be considered a social science.
A mid-way:
• Malinowski found the midway by saying, it lies in between the natural and social sciences.
• Eric Wolf- Anthropology is most humanistic of all sciences and most scientific of all humanities.
• To summarise, we can quote Robert Redfield, who argued that holistic tendencies are on rise
in anthropology.
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Conclusion:
1. Anthropology is a holistic study whose central theme is human beings. So the overlapping
with the disciplines which study only a limited aspect of human life is nothing but natural
2. Anthropology has a huge scope, as delineated by its 4 fold division of Socio-cultural,

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archaeological, linguistic and biological anthropology due to which the boundaries of research
between science and a social science will always be blurred
3. The placement of anthropology in an academic mold is an effort in vain. Instead one should
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focus more on the information that can be harvested about human beings by means of
anthropological methods. That in itself is the function of any discipline.
1. (b) Absolute dating Methods
Approach
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1. Define Dating Methods

2. Methods- Types
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3. Principle
4. Materials dated
5. Significance
6. Limitations
7. Conclusion
Hints:
Relevance
• Reconstruction of past.
• Provide a chronological account of past.
Dating Methods: Two types

1. Relative Dating Methods: Relative dating techniques which identify the order in which
sites or artifacts were used in a sequence from earliest to latest.
[2] Hints: Anthropology
Relative dating Absolute dating
Stratigraphy Radiocarbon dating
Geological calendar Potassium-argon dating
Glacial calendar Thermoluminescence dating
Fossil fauna calendar Archaeomagnetic dating
River terraces Dendrochronology
Fluorine test dating Varve analysis
Nitrogen dating Oxygen 16/18 Ratio Method
Palynology (pollen dating) Obsidian hydration dating
Patination
2. Absolute Dating Methods: Absolute (or chronometric) dating techniques that try to establish
an exact or approximate calendar date for a site or artifact.
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a) Radiocarbon dating has made a revolutionary impact in the fields of archaeology and
quaternary sciences. It is the best known and most widely used of all chronometric
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dating methods. J. R. Arnold and W. F. Libby (1949) published a paper in Science describing
the dating of organic samples from object of known age by their radiocarbon content.
Principle
• The radiocarbon dating method is based on the fact that cosmic radiation produces neutrons
that enter the earth’s atmosphere and react with nitrogen. They produce Carbon 14, a carbon
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isotope with eight rather than the usual six neutrons in the nucleus. With these additional
neutrons, the nucleus is unstable and is subjected to gradual radioactive decay and has a
half-life of about 5730 years. Libby’s equation describing the reaction as
• N14 = C14 + H1
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Hints: Anthropology [3]

Suitable Materials for Radio Carbon Dating
• Radiocarbon dates can be taken from samples of many organic materials. The kinds of material
selected for C14 dating are normally dictated by what is available. The ideal material for
radiocarbon dating is wood and charcoal burned at the time the archeological site was
occupied. Charcoal and wood are generally considered optimal since they can be readily
treated by sodium hydroxide. Bone burned at the time when the site was inhabited can also
be dated. Unaltered wood from dry sites, soot, grasses, dung (animal and human), well
preserved antler or tusk, paper, calcareous tufa formed by algae, lake mud, parchment, peat
and chemically unaltered mollusc shells all contained enough C14 to allow them to be dated.
Unburned bone contains a substance called collagen, which is rich in carbon, and this can be
extracted and dated.
• Other vegetable or animal products such as leaves, nuts, paper, parchment, cloth, skin, hide,
or hair can be dated but are seldom or never present in prehistoric associations.
Errors and Limitations
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• Errors of three kinds reduce the absolute dating value of the technique: (a) statistical-
mechanical errors, (b) errors pertaining to the C14 level of the sample itself, and (c) errors
related to laboratory storage, preparation, and measurement. These facts may be outlined
briefly.
a) A statistical-mechanical error is present as a result of the random, rather than uniform,
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disintegration of radioactive carbon. This is expressed in the date by a plus-or-minus
value in years (e.g., 6,240±320 yrs.). This statistical error can be reduced by increasing
the time of measurement.
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b) Sources of error in the C14 content of a sample may be a result of (1) past fluctuations of
the C14 concentration in the C14 exchange reservoir; (2) unequal C14 concentration in
different materials; and (3) Subsequent contamination of samples in situ.
c) Radiocarbon dates can be obtained only from organic materials, which mean that relatively
few artifacts can be dated. But associated hearths with abundant charcoal, broken animal
bones and burnt wooden structures can be dated. Artifacts contemporary with such
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phenomena are obviously of the same age as the dated samples. Chronological limits of
Carbon 14 dating are accurate from around 40, 000 years B.P. to A.D. 1500.
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Archaeological Applications
• Radiocarbon dates have been obtained from African hunter-gatherers settlements as long as
50,000 years before the present, from early farming villages in the Near East and the Americas,
and from cities and spectacular temples associated with early civilisations. The method can
be applied to sites of almost any type where organic materials are found, provided that they
date to between about 40,000 years ago and A.D. 1500.
K-Ar Dating Method:
• It is the only viable means of chronometrical dating of the earliest archaeological sites.
Geologists use this radioactive counting technique to date rocks as much as 2 billion years
old and as little as 10,000 years old.
Principle
• Potassium (K) is one of the most abundant elements in the earth’s crust and is present in
nearly every mineral. In its natural form, potassium contains a small proportion of radioactive
potassium40 atoms.
• For every hundred potassium 40 atoms that decay, eleven become argon40, an inactive gas
that can easily escape from its material by diffusion when lava and other igneous rocks are
formed.
• As volcanic rock forms by crystallisation, the concentration of argon40 drops to almost nothing.
• But regular and reasonable decay of potassium40 will continue, with a half-life of 1.3 billion
years. It is possible, then, to measure with a spectrometer the concentration of argon40 that
has accumulated since the rock formed. Because many archaeological sites were occupied
during a period when extensive volcanic activity occurred, especially in East Africa, it is
possible to date them by associations of lava with human settlements.
Datable Materials
• Potassium argon dates have been obtained from many igneous minerals, of which the most
resistant to later argon diffusion are biotite, muscovite, and sanidine.
Procedure:
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• Microscopic examination of the rock is essential to eliminate the possibility of contamination
by recrystallisation and other processes.
•
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The samples are processed by crushing the rock, concentrating it, and treating it with
hydrofluoric acid to remove any atmospheric argon from the sample.
• The various gases are then removed from the sample and the argon gas is isolated and
subjected to mass spectrographic analysis.
• The age of the sample is then calculated using the argon 40 and potassium 40 content and a
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standard formula. The resulting date is quoted with a large standard deviation-J or early
Pleistocene site, on the order of a quarter of a million years.
• Fortunately, many early human settlements in the Old World are found in volcanic areas,
where such deposits as lava flows and tuffs are found in profusion.
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• The first archaeological date, and one of the most dramatic, obtained from this method came
from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, where Louis and Mary Leakey found a long sequence of
human culture extending over much of the Lower and Middle Pleistocene, associated with
human fossils.
• Samples from the location where the first cranium of Australopithecus boisei was discovered
were dated to about 1.75million years.
• Even earlier dates have come from the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia, where American,
French, and Kenyan expeditions have investigated extensive Lower Pleistocene deposits long
known for their rich fossil beds.
• Fragmentary australopithecines were found at several localities, but no trace of tools;
potassium argon dates gave readings between two and four million years for deposits yielding
hominid fossils. Tools were found in levels dated to about two million years. Stone flakes and
chopping tools of undoubted human manufacture have come from Koobi Fora in northern
Kenya, dated to about 1.85 million years, one of the earliest dates for human artifacts.
Limitations
• Potassium-argon dates can be taken only from volcanic rocks, preferably from actual volcanic
flows. This laboratory technique is so specialised that only a trained geologist should take the
samples in the field. Archaeologically, it is obviously vital that the relationship between the
lava being dated and the human settlement, it purports to date be worked out carefully. The
standard deviations for potassium-argon dates are so large that greater accuracy is almost
impossible to achieve.
Chronological Limits
• Potassium argon dating is accurate from the origins of the earth up to about 100,000 years
before the present.
THERMOLUMINESCENCE OR TL DATING
• Thermoluminescence dating popularly now known as TL is the determination by means of
measuring the accumulated radiation dose of the time elapsed since material containing
crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments)
The Principle
• The materials from which pottery is made have the property of storing energy by trapping
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electrons as atomic defects or impurity sites. This stored energy can be released by heating
the pottery, at which time visible light rays, known as thermoluminescence, (a weak light
signal) are emitted.
• All pottery and ceramics contain some radioactive impurities at a concentration of several
parts per million. These materials emit alpha particles at a known rate, depending on how
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densely concentrated they are in the sample. When an alpha particle absorbed by the pottery
minerals around the radioactive impurities, it causes mineral atoms to ionise. Electrons are
then released from their binding to the nuclei and later settle at a metastable (relatively
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unstable) stage of higher energy.

• This energy is stored, unless the parent material is heated — as when the pot is being fired —
when the trapped electrons are released and thermoluminescence occurs. After the pot is
fired, alpha particles are again absorbed by the material and the thermoluminescence potential
increases until the pot is heated again. Thus a clay vessel is dated by measuring the
thermoluminescence of the sample as well as its alpha-radioactivity and its potential
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susceptibility to producing thermoluminescence. In the laboratory, the trapped electrons are

produced from a pottery fragment by sudden and violent heating under controlled conditions.
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Archaeological Applications and Limitations

• Thermoluminescence dating is used for material where radiocarbon dating is not available,
like sediments.
• Its use is now common in the authentication of old ceramic wares, for which it gives the
approximate date of the last firing.
• Thermoluminescence has been used with reasonable success to date heat altered stone tools,
burned hearths, and pottery.
• Exciting possibilities are emerging from experiments with dating Ice Age sediments such as
loess, some in contexts where there are associations with Stone Age artifacts.
PALAEOMAGNETIC OR ARCHAEOMAGNETIC DATING
• After World War II, geologists developed the paleomagnetic dating technique to measure the
movements of the magnetic north pole over geologic time. In the early to mid 1960s, Dr.
Robert Dubois introduced this new absolute dating technique to archaeology as
archaeomagnetic dating
Principle
• Direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic field varied throughout prehistoric time. Many
clays and clay soils contain magnetic minerals, which when heated to a dull red heat will
assume the direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic field at the moment of heating.
Thus if the changes in the earth’s magnetic field have been recorded over centuries, or even
millennia, it is possible to date any suitable sample of clay material known to have been
heated by correlating the thermoremanent magnetism of the heated clay with records of the
earth’s magnetic field. Archaeologists frequently discover structures with well-baked clay
floors— ovens, kilns, and iron-smelting furnaces, to name only a few—whose burned clay
can be used for archaeomagnetic dating.
• Thermoremanent magnetism results from the ferromagnetism of magnetite and hematite,
minerals found in significant quantities in most soils. When the soil containing these minerals
is heated, the magnetic particles in magnetite and hematite change from a random alignment
to one that conforms with that of the earth’s magnetic field. In effect, the heated lump of
clay becomes a very weak magnet that can be measured by a parastatic magnetometer. A
record of the magnetic declination and dip similar to that of the earth’s actual magnetic field
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at the time of heating is preserved in the clay lump. The alignment of the magnetic particles
fixed by heating is called thermoremanent magnetism.
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Datable Materials and Procedures
• Substantial floors of well-baked clay are best for the purpose. Tiny pillars of burnt clay that
will fit into a brass-framed extraction jig are extracted from the floor. The jig is oriented to
present-day north-south and fitted over the pillars, which are then encapsulated in melted
dental plaster. The jig and pillar are carefully removed from the floor, and then the other
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side of the jig is covered with dental plaster as well. The clay sample is placed under suspended
magnets and rotated. The scale will record the declination and dip of the remnant magnetism
in the clay.
Archaeological Applications and Limitations
• From the archaeological point of view, archaeomagnetism has but limited application because
systematic records of the secular variation in the earth’s magnetic field have been kept for
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only a few areas. Declination and dip have been recorded in London for four hundred years,
and a very accurate record of variations covers the period from A.D. 1600. France, Germany,
Japan, and the southwestern United States have received some attention. At the moment the
method is limited, but as local variation curves are recorded from more areas,
archaeomagnetism is likely to far more useful for the more recent periods of prehistory, when
kilns and other burned-clay features were in use.
Chronological Range
• By archaeomagnetic dating one can date two thousand year old human evidence.
Varve Dating
• Varves are annual, graded, bands of sediment laid down in glacier-fed lakes contiguous with
the margins of continental glaciers. Detailed work by G. de Geer (1912, and later authors) on
such annual sediment layers shows that a new load of sediment enters the lake in the wake
of each spring’s thaw.
• The coarser materials (mainly silts) settle down first while the finer ones (clays) gradually
settle during the course of the summer.
• In larger lakes, wave motion may impede fine sedimentation until autumn when the lake
surface freezes over. In numerous cases, fine sedimentation continues under the ice throughout
the winter. When coarse silts or fine sands are deposited again during the succeeding spring,
a sharp contact zone is formed, so enabling clear identification of the annual increment.
• Further seasonal distinctions are provided through biological evidence. The coarse springtime
accretion is generally dark and rich in organic matter, while the fine summer sediment is
light-colored due to calcium carbonate precipitation. The late summer and autumn sediments
are dark again. Pollen examinations of the upper dark layers have shown pollen sequences
according to the time of blooming, while microorganisms such as diatoms are concentrated
in the light, summer segment.
• The thickness of the annual deposit or varve varies from year to year depending on the
course of the annual weather and its influence on the ablation of the nearby glacier. A warm
year produces large varves, a cold year narrow ones. A requisite to the regular laminar
sedimentation is the temperature contrast of warmer, inflowing waters and cold lake waters,
whereby the sediment is distributed evenly over the lake bed. Such conditions are best met in
ice-margin lakes.
• De Geer first recognised that varve sequences were very similar between nearby lakes – within
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a kilometer of each other – on account of the similarity of local climate. On this basis sequences
were correlated and extended in time from area to area. By following the various stands of
the retreating ice front. De Geer established an almost complete sequence covering 15,000
years from the late Upper Pleistocene well into historical times.
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• This provided a true chronology whereby glacial features related to the retreat and dissipation
of the European glacier could be more or less precisely dated. For example, the close of the
Pleistocene was fixed by the event of the draining of the Baltic ice lake, which, according to
the varves, occurred in 7912 B. C. Radiocarbon cross-dating suggests that this date may be at
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most a few centuries off.

Difficulties in the Varve Chronology
• Within Fennoscandia the varve-chronology, as established by De Geer (1912, 1940) and
Sauramo (1929), has in part remained a respectable body of evidence. It has been shown,
however, that storms create multiple varves annually in shallow lakes through addition of
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extra influx and the stirring of sediments. As most of the lakes south of the Fennoscandian
moraines, dating about 9000 B. C., are shallow, the earlier chronology is now considered
doubtful.
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• The establishment of varve-chronologies outside Scandinavia, as attempted by Antevs (1925)

in North America, has not been very successful. A major reason for this failure has been
extrapolation of sequence segments over hundreds of miles. World-wide correlations of a
frivolous type were attempted later whereby reversed seasons in the northern and southern
hemispheres, of nonglacial characteristics of varves, have been simply ignored. These attempts
have discredited the varve method and generally speaking, other techniques have now
replaced the varve chronologies everywhere except in Fennoscandia.
Dendrochronology
• Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, was originated in Arisona by A. E. Douglass in about
1913. Tree-ring analysis is a botanical technique with strong analogies to varve study.
Principles
• The underlying principle is that nontropical trees add an annual growth increment to their
stems. Each tree ring, the concentric circle, representing annual growth, visible on the cross-
section of a felled trunk. These rings are formed on all trees but especially where seasonal
changes in weather are marked, with either a wet and dry season or a definite alternation of
summer and winter temperatures.
• Particularly in “stress” zones, along the polar and grassland tree limits, annual radial growth
fluctuates widely, depending on the fluctuations of the growing season climate. In warm
semiarid regions, available moisture largely controls the rate of radial growth of trees: the
tree ring of a moist year is wide, while that of a dry year is narrow or, on occasion, missing
entirely. In sub polar regions, rainfall is less significant since the late spring snows keep the
water content of the soil sufficiently high. Instead summer, and particularly July, temperatures
show the most significant correlation with radial growth.
• Dendrochronologists have invented sophisticated methods of correlating rings from different
trees so that they build up long sequences of rings from a number of trunks that may extend
over many centuries. By using modern trees, whose date of felling is known, they are able to
reconstruct accurate dating as far back as 8,200 years. Actual applications to archaeological
wood are much harder, but archaeological chronology for the American Southwest now
goes back to 322 B.C.
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• Extremely accurate chronologies for southwestern sites have been achieved by correlating a
master tree-ring sequence from felled trees and dated structures with beams from Indian
Pueblos. The beams in many such structures have been used again and again, and thus some
are very much older than the houses in which they were most recently used for support. The
earliest tree ring obtained from such settlements date to the first century B.C. but most timbers
were in use between A. D. 1000 and historic times.
• One of the most remarkable applications of tree-ring dating was carried out by
• Jeffrey Dean (1970), who collected numerous samples from wooden beams at Betatakin, a
cliff dwelling in northeastern Arisona dating to A.D. 1270. Dean ended up with no fewer
than 292 samples, which he used to reconstruct a history of the cliff dwelling, room by room.
Dendrochronology has been used widely in Alaska, the Mississippi Valley, northern Mexico,
Canada, Scandinavia, Ireland, the British Isles, Greece, and Germany (Bannister and Robinson,
1975; Baillie, 1982). Recent European research has been especially successful. What the
bristlecone pine is to the Southwest, oaks are to Europe.
• Arisona tree-ring laboratories are trying to analyse data on annual variability in rainfall from
the many trees encompassed by their chronologies. A network of archaeological and modern
chronologies provides a basis for reconstructing changing climatic conditions over the past
two thousand years. These conditions will be compared with the complex events in
southwestern prehistory over the same period.
Limitations
• Dendrochronology has traditionally been limited to areas with well-defined seasonal rainfall.
Where the climate is generally humid or cold or where trees enjoy a constant water supply,
the difference in annual growth rings is either blurred or insignificant. Again, the context in
which the archaeological tree-ring sample is found affects the usefulness of the sample. Many
house beams have been reused several times, and the outside surface of the log has been
trimmed repeatedly. The felling date cannot be established accurately without carefully
observing the context and archaeological association of the beam. For this reason, several
dates must be obtained from each site. Artifacts found in a structure whose beams are dated
do not necessarily belong to the same period, for the house may have been used over several
generations.
Chronological Range
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Dendrochronology is accurate from approximately seven thousand years ago to the present,
with wider application possible. Nonarchaeological tree-ring dates extend back 8,200 years.
1. (c) Natufian culture

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Approach
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1. Introduction
2. Discoverer
3. Time Period
4. Climatic conditions
5. Geographical location
6. Main Sites
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7. Salient Features
8. Conclusion
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Hints:
Introduction: Preagricultural Epipaleolithic (Transitioal between Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic)
Culture associated with storage of crops, sedentary and semi sedentary settlements (unusual for
its time).
Geographical location: Levant: (Jordan, Syria, Israel)
Discoverer: Dorothy Garrod
Time Period: 15000-11500 years old
Climatic Conditions: Terminal Pleistocene to the beginning of Holocene
Main Sites: Eynan, el-Wad, Kebara and Tabun
Salient Features: Settlement; Subsistence; Tool technology; Belief Pattern
• Settled Living: Larger settlement size (Natufian sites were 5 times larger than its predecessors).
People live in circular pit houses, with permanent hearth and plastered storage structures
for storing wild grains beneath their houses.
• Tool Technology: Microliths, Sickles, stone mortars, basalt sharpening tools, advanced
knowledge of lime plaster production. There was a rich bone industry, including harpoons
and fish hooks. Stone and bone were worked into pendants and other ornaments.
• Subsistence: They relied on wild grains and hunting of wild Gazelle. There was a sign of
nutritional deficiency, evidenced from the enamel and decline in stature.
• Burial: Common village cemetery for burial of people, indicating settled living.
• Evidence of increasing use of stationary resources and subsequent increase in social complexity.
Conclusion:
• Natufian culture is significant as it helps in tracing out the history of agriculture and
settled living.
1. (d) New Archaeology Movement
Hints:
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Introduction: It was a movement in archaeological thought which led to shift in focus from
identification and classification of antiquities to understanding of various processes of culture. It
was started after the publication of works of V.G.Childe, Clark and Piggot.
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Processual archaeology (formerly, the New Archaeology) is a form of archaeological theory that
had its genesis in 1958 with the work of Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips, Method and Theory
in American Archaeology, in which the pair stated that “American archaeology is anthropology
or it is nothing” (Willey and Phillips, 1958:2)
This movement got a significant boost with the efforts of Lewis Binford and David Clarke.
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Influences:
1. Evolutionism
2. Cultural Ecology
3. Logical Positivism
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4. Systems Theory
Contributions to the development of New Archaeological Thoughts: Publications of
1. Gordon Childe’s — “Piecing Together the Past: The Interpretation of Archaeological Data”
2. Grahame Clark’s - “Archaeology and Society”
3. Stuart Piggot’s - “Approach to Archaeology”
4. Albert Spaudling’s Paper- “Statistical description and comparison of artifact
assemblage”(1960)-This paper opened way for quantification in Archaeology.
5. Carl Hempel’s –”Philosophy of Natural Sciences”(1966)
6. James Deetz’s Human behavior and Archaeological remains” (1967)
Main Proponents of New Archaeology Movement: Lewis Binford (USA) and David Clarke
(England) were mainly responsible for emergence of New Archaeology in 1960s.
New Approaches/methodologies:
1. Systems Approach: Both emphasized on Systems Approach and held that archaeologists
should not only identify the components but their interconnections as well as these alone
gives clue about past cultural processes.
2. Scientific Approach: According to Binford New Archaeology concerns itself to the
anthropological goal of explaining culture change with reference to law-like formulations or
generalizations cutting across time and space.
3. Ecological Approach / Role of Environment: Both emphasized up on the role of environment
in functioning of human cultures. Binford goes on to define culture as the extra somatic
means of adaptation to respective environmental settings.
4. Regional Approach: Binford argued that adoption of a regional approach to archaeological
sites as a prerequisite for realizing the anthropological goals of archaeology aimed at
identification of past human behavioral patterns.
5. Use of Statistics and Quantification
Criticisms against this trend: Led by the proponents of Interpretative Archaeology such as Ian
Hodder. Main points of criticism were that the internal and innovative elements of culture were
ignored at cost of external environmental factors, which were the main agents of cultural change.
Post-processualist critics consider the main weaknesses of processual archaeology:
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Environmental determinism
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view of cultures as homeostatic, with cultural change only resulting from outside stimuli
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• failure to take into account factors such as gender, ethnicity, identity, social relations etc.
• supposed objectivity of interpretation
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Conclusion: According to Lewis Binford the goal of Archaeological Anthropology is going beyond
the traditional tasks of description and classification of antiquarian remains to the anthropological
goal of explaining culture change with reference to law-like formulations or generalizations cutting
across time and space.
For Additional Reading
Interpretative Archaeology
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Introduction: Interpretative Archaeology emerged in reaction to the functionalists and behavior-

oriented approaches and methodologies, of Processual Archaeological school. The Main Proponent
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of this School was Ian Hodder of Cambridge University.

Influences: This school of Archeological Anthropology was influenced by the publications of:
1. Gordon Childe’s — “Piecing Together the Past: The Interpretation of Archaeological Data”
2. Grahame Clark’s - “Archaeology and Society”
3. Stuart Piggot’s - “Approach to Archaeology”
Main Propositions:
1. Major proposition of this trend holds that it is the internal, innovative elements within human
culture, rather than external environmental factors, which are agents of culture change.
2. The second major aspect of this new trend highlights the importance of relating behaviour to
human minds. So interpretative archaeology has also come to be known as archaeology of
mind. It brought to fore human cognitive abilities, sentiments, feelings and emotions. This led
to the growth of definite trends such as cognitive archaeology, symbolic archaeology,
structuralist archaeology, hermeneutical archaeology, etc.
3. As against the use of scientific method emphasised by New Archaeology, post processual
archaeology treats archaeological record as a text and that its meanings in terms of human
minds need to be retrieved by methods of interpretation.
Contributions:
• This led to the growth of definite trends such as cognitive archaeology, symbolic archaeology,
• Recognition of human agency as an agent of change.
Conclusion:
We may now conclude our foregoing observations about conceptual developments in archaeology
by emphasizing that (1) these developments constitute yet another instance of the progress of all
social sciences from description and classification to explanation to interpretation; and (2) these
various trends are in the final analysis mutually complementary and not contradictory.
1. (e) Ethno-archaeology as a research strategy
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Hints:
Definition:
OR
Ethnoarchaeology is a research technique that involves using information from living cultures—
in the form of ethnology, ethnography, ethnohistory, and experimental archaeology—to
understand patterns found at an archaeological site. An ethnoarchaeologist acquires evidence
about ongoing activities in any society and uses those studies to draw analogies from modern
behavior to explain and better understand patterns seen in archaeological sites.
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Susan Kent defined ethnoarchaeology’s purpose as “to formulate and test archaeologically oriented
and/or derived methods, hypotheses, models and theories with ethnographic data.”
Lewis Binford wrote: ethnoarchaeology is a “Rosetta stone: a way of translating the static material
found on an archaeological site into the vibrant life of a group of people who in fact left them
there.”
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Archaeologist Nicholas David described clearly: ethnoarchaeology is an attempt to cross the

divide between the ideational order (the unobservable ideas, values, norms, and representation of
the human mind) and the phenomenal order (artifacts, things affected by human action and
differentiated by matter, form, and context).
Objective:
The main objective of ethnoarchaeology lies with the fact that how the ethnographic data can
be fruitfully used in understanding and interpreting insights of the past human behaviour. This
has a significant reference to the application of knowledge of relationship between human behavior
and its archaeological consequences in the present.
One of the objectives of ethnoarchaeology, according to Carol Kramer (1979, 1982) is ‘to improve
understanding of the relationship between patterned behaviour and elements of materials that
may be preserved in the archaeological record’.
Ethnoarchaeology, in essence, aims at the ‘acquisition of ethnographic data to assist archaeological
interpretation’ (Politis 2007: 58) and mainly endeavours to establish ‘relationships between human
behavior and its archaeological consequences in the present.
Beginning and Development:
• American archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes first mentioned the “ethno-archaeologist” in
1900, and encouraged archaeologists to conduct their own ethnographic field work.
https://upscmaterial.online/
.
3. As against the use of scientific method emphasised by New Archaeology, post processual
archaeology treats archaeological record as a text and that its meanings in terms of human
minds need to be retrieved by methods of interpretation.
Contributions:
• This led to the growth of definite trends such as cognitive archaeology, symbolic archaeology,
• Recognition of human agency as an agent of change.
Conclusion:
We may now conclude our foregoing observations about conceptual developments in archaeology
by emphasizing that (1) these developments constitute yet another instance of the progress of all
social sciences from description and classification to explanation to interpretation; and (2) these
various trends are in the final analysis mutually complementary and not contradictory.
1. (e) Ethno-archaeology as a research strategy
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Hints:
Definition:
OR
Ethnoarchaeology is a research technique that involves using information from living cultures—
in the form of ethnology, ethnography, ethnohistory, and experimental archaeology—to
understand patterns found at an archaeological site. An ethnoarchaeologist acquires evidence
about ongoing activities in any society and uses those studies to draw analogies from modern
behavior to explain and better understand patterns seen in archaeological sites.
SC
Susan Kent defined ethnoarchaeology’s purpose as “to formulate and test archaeologically oriented
and/or derived methods, hypotheses, models and theories with ethnographic data.”
Lewis Binford wrote: ethnoarchaeology is a “Rosetta stone: a way of translating the static material
found on an archaeological site into the vibrant life of a group of people who in fact left them
there.”
Archaeologist Nicholas David described clearly: ethnoarchaeology is an attempt to cross the
S
divide between the ideational order (the unobservable ideas, values, norms, and representation of
the human mind) and the phenomenal order (artifacts, things affected by human action and
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differentiated by matter, form, and context).

Objective:
The main objective of ethnoarchaeology lies with the fact that how the ethnographic data can
be fruitfully used in understanding and interpreting insights of the past human behaviour. This
has a significant reference to the application of knowledge of relationship between human behavior
and its archaeological consequences in the present.
One of the objectives of ethnoarchaeology, according to Carol Kramer (1979, 1982) is ‘to improve
understanding of the relationship between patterned behaviour and elements of materials that
may be preserved in the archaeological record’.
Ethnoarchaeology, in essence, aims at the ‘acquisition of ethnographic data to assist archaeological
interpretation’ (Politis 2007: 58) and mainly endeavours to establish ‘relationships between human
behavior and its archaeological consequences in the present.
Beginning and Development:
• American archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes first mentioned the “ethno-archaeologist” in
1900, and encouraged archaeologists to conduct their own ethnographic field work.
Telegram - @upscmaterial_online
.
• Widespread acceptance of ethnoarchaeology as a true subdiscipline of archaeology did not
emerge until the late 1950s and 1960s, as archaeologists began to explore the different scientific
applications it might have.
• Ethnoarchaeology today has become a widely accepted research practice, with a few
archaeologists even identifying as “ethnoarchaeologists” rather than simply “archaeologists.”
• The concept of ‘action archaeology’ (Kleindienst and Watson, 1956) is another facet of
development of ethnoarchaeology, which proposes to study living communities in order to
compile inventories of material of interest to archaeologists.
Features:
• Ethno-Archaeology was one of the most significant recent developments in Anthropological
discipline.
• Archaeologists study past societies primarily through their material remains like buildings,
tools, artifacts and constitute as a material culture from former societies. But the problem
is how to interpret the material culture in human terms. Thus, by studying today’s culture,
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past culture can be interpreted.
• At this juncture, Archaeology works overlap with ethnography. So, Archaeologists to deal
•
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with this problem have developed this concept of Ethno- Archaeology.
Ethnoarchaeology is typically conducted by using the cultural anthropological methods of
participant observation, but it also finds behavioural data in ethnohistorical and ethnographic
reports as well as oral history.
• The basic requirement is to draw on strong evidence of any kind for describing artifacts and
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their interactions with people in activities.

• Archaeology record can only be understood, if we know how it came & how it formed.
Formation process are now a major focus of study. Ethno-Archaeology, improve in
understanding the archaeology record.
• Ethno-archaeology is the methodological manifestation of logic-deductive reasoning in
archaeology & anthropological discipline.
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• Ethno-archaeology emphasis more on explanation. Explaining how the archeological record

was formed & what excavated structure & artifacts might means in terms of human
behaviour.
• Ethno-archaeology is an indirect approach of understanding any past society.
Sources of Ethnoarchaeological data:
• Ethnoarchaeological data can be found in published or unpublished written accounts
(archives, field notes, etc.); photographs; oral history; public or private collections of artifacts;
and of course, from observations deliberately made for archaeological purposes on a living
society.
• American archaeologist Patty Jo Watson argued that ethnoarchaeology should also include
experimental archaeology. In experimental archaeology, the archaeologist creates the situation
to be observed rather than taking it where he or she finds it: observations are still made of
archaeological relevant variables within a living context.
Methods used:
• Analogies: Analogy is the transportation of information from one subject to another on the
basis of some relation of comparability between them
.
– While describing the relationship of archaeology and ethnography, Kluckhohn states
that ‘archaeology is the ethnography and culture history of past peoples’, and its
cornerstone is analogy ‘
– In a 1971 study, Gould and his team compared working edge angle of Mousterain
Quina scrapers and modern Western Desert Aboriginal scrapers and found the
Mousterain angles to be steeper. Gould reasoned this was due to the Western Desert
Aborigines retouching the scrapers further than the Hominids of the Mousterian. Gould
et al. concluded that this method of studying ethnographic tool use for comparison could
be employed to determine what tools were used for.
• Direct Historical Approach- The direct historical approach investigates the past by working
backward in time from the known ethnographic present to the unknown pre-colonial past.
The approach assumes historical connection between past and present and promises to yield
insights into the contingent facts of particular culture histories by means of analogies.
• Cultural Survivals: Survivals, in anthropology, cultural phenomena that outlive the set of
conditions under which they developed. The term was first employed by the British
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anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor in his Primitive Culture (1871). Tylor believed that
seemingly irrational customs and beliefs, such as peasant superstitions, were vestiges of earlier
rational practices.
• OR
The ethnographic parallelism is the basic research tool of this subdiscipline which rests its
foundation on the principle of uniformitarianism that is, ‘the present is the key to the past’
(Hester and Grady 1982:14) - a heraldic principle in stratigraphic geology. Ethnographic
analogy, also called ‘applied ethnoarchaeological principle’ is an important device within
the ethnoarchaeological framework that can make the ‘mute’ archaeological finds speak
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Case Studies:
• The study of butchery (works) practices among the living hunter-gatherers, undertaken by
Lewis Binford among the Nunamiut Eskimo of Alaska, has given him many new ideas
about the way Archaeological remains or relics may have been formed allowing him to re-
evaluate the bone remains of animals eaten by very early humans elsewhere in the world.
• William L. Rathje’s Garbology Project: Another example from Tucson, Arizona where
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William L. Rathje set up the Tucson Garbage project. It involves the collection of Garbage
from the trash cans of a section of the city and the great careful sorting in the laboratory of
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all that they contain. Thus, the rather unsavory task has given some valuable and unexpected
insights into the pattern of consumption of the modern urban population — and the methods
employed are purely Archaeological.
• Kalinga ethnoarchaeological project of William Longacre- social context of pottery making.
• John Sally- Kung
• Malti Nagar- Bhils near Bhimbetaka region.
• Indian Megaliths and understanding of Prehistoric Societies: It can also help with specific
Archaeological studies when the ways of life of the modern society are sufficiently similar to
those of the past life. It has become a current focus of research. In one way or another we
compare something from the past with an object in use today. For instance, megalithism is a
dead cultural phenomenon which cannot be seen in other parts of the world. It is still practiced
by different tribal communities in the same way or in some modified form in North-East
India, particularly in Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland. Among these tribal communities
megalithism is a living tradition. Hence many scholars who are specialized and in the field of
ethno Archaeology take keen interest to reconstruct the past life ways of the ancient people
of these regions in the light of this living tradition.
.
Criticisms of Ethno-archaeological:
• Archaeologists Olivier Gosselain and Jerimy Cunningham have argued that western
scholars are blinded by assumptions about living cultures. In particular, Gosselain argues
that ethnoarchaeology doesn’t apply to prehistory because it isn’t practiced as ethnology—in
other words, to properly apply cultural templates derived from living people you can’t simply
pick up technical data.
• One of Ian Hodder’s (1982:160) arguments regarding the difficulty faced by post processualists
in reconstructing appropriate meaning from archaeological evidence owes to the lack of frames
of relevant models for interpretation, and is not a result of limited data. His strong contention
is that material culture is not an adaptive response, or a passive reflection of economic aspects
of life, but is ‘meaningfully constituted one’ in an ideological context.
• Another issue often faced in ethnoarchaeology is the potential for a single archaeological
situation to have multiple possible analogies drawn from it. A process of elimination must
take place to narrow down all of the possibilities until the best solution can be discovered.
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• Ethnoarchaeology must be used with caution for several reasons, not least the ethical and
moral implications of invading the private lives of indigenous communities for research, but
also the implication that such societies are ‘backwards’ and therefore analogous to ancient
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cultures. There is also the assumption that what is done by tribes today was done by others
in the past, and we must be careful in our interpretation that we do not misinterpret activities
in a desire to make connections to previous findings.
• The overall goals are more limited than those of classical ethnography, since they are usually
related to material culture, with the settlement and with the exploitation of the environment
and landscape changes. This makes ethnoarchaeological work generally more specific and
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shorter than those of classical ethnography.

But Gosselain also argues that doing a full ethnological study would not be useful expenditure of
time, since equating present-day societies are never going to be sufficiently applicable to the past.
He also adds that although ethnoarchaeology may no longer be a reasonable way to conduct
research, the main benefits of the study have been to amass a huge amount of data on production
techniques and methodologies, which can be used as a reference collection for scholarship.
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2. (a) Give a broad outline of Paleolithic culture emphasizing on its tool technology.
Approach
1. Introduction- 3 fold division, time period
2. Categorize tool technologies as per the cultural periods
a. Name
b. Process
c. Cultures
d. Tool types
e. Sites
3. Conclude by the further developments in terms of tool technology and newer techniques
like Pressure flaking, fluting etc.
Hints:
The palaeolithic or the old stone age was a cultural phase of human history corresponding to the
Pleistocene period.
.
The 3-fold division of the Palaeolithic period was given by Lartet: Lower, Middle and Upper
Paleolithic
Classification based upon tool techniques:
We can broadly group the stone tool making techniques of prehistoric periods into:
Percussion Flaking Pressure Pecking,
Grinding and
Polishing
Direct Indirect/ Clactonian Levalloisian Mousterian
Punching
Technique
1. Block on Flakes Lower Lower and Middle Mesolithic Neolithic
Block or Paleolithic Middle Paleolithic
Anvil Paleolithic
Technique
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OR
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S
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.
Lower palaeolithic:
Tool cultures: Pebble flake culture of west Europe, Abbevellio-Acheulian culture, Oldowan culture
Tool names: Handaxes, choppers, cleavers
Important sites: Terra Amata, Turkana region, Koobifera, Sterkfontein, Zhoukoudian, Sohan
valley, Dmanisi in Georgia
Associated Species- Homo habilis, homo erectus, homo heidelbergensis
Techniques:
Direct percussion: This was the most common method adopted by prehistoric man. In this the
stone hammer hits the stone in a swinging blow. Maximum amount of force enters the stone in a
rather uncontrolled manner. It results in a great deal of shattering effect. The bulb is pronounced
and has a fairly large outer circumference. Sometimes this technique is also referred to as free
flaking technique.
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OR
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Block-on-Block technique: In this technique the pebble or block of stone to be worked is struck
against the projecting point of a large fixed stone or anvil. The bulbs produced in this kind of
flaking can be really pronounced as the force with which the stone hits the anvil is supplemented
by the natural weight of the rock.
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Clactonian technique:
This is the oldest flaking technique known from the British Lower Palaeolithic. The name is derived
from the site Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. These flakes are known from all over Europe during various
stages of Palaeolithic culture. These are essentially typified by a characteristic high flake angle
and a general absence of secondary retouchings on them.
A core can yield a very limited number of flakes because as soon as the direction of force becomes
vertical the core shatters into several chips because of reaction of rigidity.
.
Clactonian technique attempts to overcome this limitation by changing the point(angle) on which
the hammer strikes every time a new flake is removed. That is first a massive flake is removed
from one surface by using block-on-block technique. For the removal of the second flake the flake
scar of the first flake is used as the platform. For the removal of the third flake the flake scar of
the second flake is used as the platform. The process is repeated until the entire core is exhausted.
Middle Palaeolithic
Tool cultures: Mousterian culture
Tool names: Burins, scrapers, points, borers
Important sites: La Mousterier, La quina, Devil’s quarry, La picoque etc
Indian sites- Bhimbhetka, Kurnool, Nevasa (Sankalia)
Associated species- Neanderthals
Techniques:
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OR
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Levallois Technique:
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The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping
developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part
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of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was used by the Neanderthals in Europe and by
modern humans in other regions such as the Levant.
It is named after 19th-century finds of flint tools in the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris, France.
The technique was more sophisticated than earlier methods of lithic reduction, involving the
striking of lithic flakes from a prepared lithic core.
A striking platform is formed at one end and then the core’s edges are trimmed by flaking off
pieces around the outline of the intended lithic flake. This creates a domed shape on the side of
the core, known as a tortoise core, as the various scars and rounded form are reminiscent of a
tortoise’s shell.
Generally cylinder hammer technique is used for the final blow. When the striking platform is
finally hit, a lithic flake separates from the lithic core with a distinctive plano-convex profile and
with all of its edges sharpened by the earlier trimming work.
This method provides much greater control over the size and shape of the final flake which
would then be employed as a scraper or knife although the technique could also be adapted to
produce projectile points known as Levallois points.
.
Upper palaeolithic:
Tool cultures: Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian
Tool names: Needles, Harpoons, Fishing hooks, Baton de commandments.
Important sites:
a. Altamira, Cantabria, Spain
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b. Aurignac, France,
c. La Madeleine, France, OR
d. Lascaux, France, eastern France
India:
Reningunta (Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh)- this site has yielded a large number of blades that are
often regarded as representative tool of upper Paleolithic age.
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Mutchatala Chintamani Gavai (Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh)- among number of such blade tools
are burins, awls, scrapers, borers, points and small choppers. This cave sites occupies a special
place among them. Also, the first bone tool have been discovered from this site. Not only that, the
richness of this site can be imagined by the fact that more than 90% of the tools found at this site
consist of bone tools. Among such tools made on bone, horns and other non-lithic materials are
scrapers, chisels, borers, barbs and spatula.
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Bhimbhetka and Bagor (Madhya Pradesh) and Belan valley (Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh)
Associated species- Homo sapiens
Techniques:
Blade Technique
Here, a more or less cylindrical or elongated core is first chosen. One end of this elongated core is
struck off to prepare the striking platform. Then the core is held firmly, possibly on the ground,
and by using a stone hammer flakes are removed in long grooves. This is done repeatedly, and
finally a blow is given at the striking platform to remove a long elongated flake which looks like
a modern blade. These stone blades are very sharp and can be used for fine slicing as well.
The main features of a blade flake include the following:
a) Flakes are thin, elongated and almost parallel sided,
b) The flake scars are also elongated and parallel sided, and
c) Striking platform makes an angle of 90º with the axis of the flake scar.
At times instead of a stone hammer used in direct percussion, a punch might also be used to
remove the flakes from the cylindrical core.
.
As human evolved, their tool cultures and techniques also evolved. Newer techniques like fluting,
hafting developed in the later Mesolithic and Neolithic periods which allowed humans to further
exploit the natural resources around them and ensure better survival.
2. (b) What is Megalithic Culture? Discuss the Megalithic Cultures of India with
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reference to North-east India.
Approach
2.
3.
Introduction
Features
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4. Types
5. History
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6. Indigenous or Foreign
7. Living Tradition
Hints:
Introduction: Megalithic culture refers to the way of life of the people who erected huge memorial
stones or megaliths for the dead.
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• The term “megalithic” is derived from the Greek words megas, i.e., huge and lithos, i.e.,
stone.
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• The Megaliths are thus structures built of large, undressed or roughly dressed, stones erected
normally in the memory of the dead and occur generally above the ground.
• The culture was present mainly in the Neolithic and continued into the Chalcolithic Age
and the early historical period characterized by Sangam age and the Satavahna rule. In
recent times, this practice is still found among many tribals of North-East India.
• It may be noted that in south India there has been no Copper-Bronze Age but only the Iron
Age that emerged straight from the Neolithic stage. One reason for it may be the paucity of
copper as against the iron sources which occur in Hyderabad and Kurnool districts of Andhra
Pradesh, Bellary and Dharwar districts of Karnataka, and Salem and Tiruchirappalli district
of Tamil Nadu.
FEATURES OF MEGALITHIC CULTURES:
Economy:
The subsistence economy of Megalithic people was based on mixed agro-pastoral activities and
their diet included agricultural products as well as hunted animals.
.
The Megaliths were constructed on barren land so that could not be damaged by agricultural
activity.
Korisetter- Surplus economy
Mukund Kajale- Rabi and Kharif crops-rice, wheat, lentils, black gram, horse gram, common pea
etc.
Tool technology:
The south Indian Megalithic people are the first to use iron in India and, therefore, their culture
is sometimes described as the “Iron Culture of South India.”
• The iron arrowheads and spearheads from Hallur (Distt. Dharwar, Karnataka) have been
dated, on the basis of C14 dates, to around 1200 BC. It has led D.K. Chakrabarti [1991: 22]
to argue that the earlier assumption that the beginning of iron in India should be associated
either with the coming of the Aryans from north-west or with the supposed dispersal of
Hittite monopoly of iron technology from West Asia should now be discarded.
o He argues that, as iron artifacts found in southern and central India are of an earlier
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date than those recovered from north western India, India may be accepted as a
“separate” and “independent” centre of iron technology during ancient times.
o
OR
The evidence of a furnace built of curved bricks from Naikund, near Nagpur, and of a
large quantity of iron slag (i.e., rough waste left after smelting iron) from Paiyampalli in
Tamilnadu suggests that iron smelting was a local activity in these areas. Moorti [1994:
42] refers to no less than 68 iron smelting sites in south India.
Pottery: Wheel based pottery, Black and Red Ware (Contemporary of PGW of Gangetic Valley
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1300-600 BC, a proto-urban culture associated with Hastinapur of Mahabharata- B.B Lal,
succeeded by NBPW)
Settlement patterns:
Habitation sites are rarely found in association with the megaliths, excepting at Maski, Tekalghat,
Paiyampalli and a few others. The reason for it is not clear. Leshnik [1974] takes it to indicate
pastoral or semi-settled agriculturist way of life of the Megalithic people but others believe that it
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could be because of lack of intensive regional survey.

Social Organisation
• Megalithic society was composed of various social groups which, besides hunters and
agriculturists, included specialised groups of artisans and craftsmen such as potters, ironsmiths,
goldsmiths who could not have survived without some surplus production, howsoever
marginal. The evidence of storage jars from certain sites also goes in support of this argument.
Ranked and Patriarchal Society:
• An analysis of grave goods has led U.S. Moorti to argue that the Megalithic people of south
India had probably a “ranked society” dominated by a “chief.” He is also of the view that
the high percentage of adult males in the graves may in all probability indicate a patriarchal
nature of the Megalithic society in which males occupied a special social status.
Religious beliefs and Burial Rituals:
• The funerary goods placed systematically along with the dead bodies are indicative of people’s
faith in burial rituals and their belief in life after death. It is pointed out that ancestor worship
is an important medium to claim and sustain the power of the succeeding chief and, therefore,
it is possible that the megalithic graves represent the prevalence of ancestor worship among
the people.
.
• The above description of the megalithic culture shows that the megalithic communities were
dominated by religious and supernatural beliefs.
Burial Goods:
• In concordance with their belief in life after death, the megalithic people were in the habit of
interring burial goods along with mortal remains. These can be broadly categorized as
“ceramic, iron and copper artefacts, beads of various raw materials, gold & silver ornaments,
terracotta objects, objects of art and miscellaneous objects”, according to Chakrabarti.
Types:
TYPES OF MEGALITHS
• There are large numbers of megaliths found all over world but we may group the similar
types together.
• The types of megalithic structures can be divided into two categories, the “Polylithic type”
and the “Monolithic type”.
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• In polylithic type Chalcolithic Cultures more than one stone is used to make the megalithic
structure.
• OR
In monolithic type the structure consists of a single stone. Following are the different megalithic
structures.
Polylithic types
• Dolmen: This is a type of megalith which is made in single chamber tomb, usually consisting
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of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone. Dolmens were
usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrow. But in many cases that covering
has weathered away, leaving only the stone “skeleton” of the burial mound intact.
• Cairn: A Cairn is a human-made pile of stones, often in conical form. They are usually
found in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, or near waterways. In modern times
Cairns are often erected as landmarks. In ancient times they were erected as sepulchral
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monuments or used for practical and astronomical purposes. These vary from loose, small
piles of stones to elaborate feats of engineering.
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• Cromlekh: Cromlekh is a British word used to describe prehistoric megalithic structures,

where crom means “bent” and llech means “flagstone”. The term is now virtually obsolete in
archaeology, but remains in use as a colloquial term for two different types of megalithic
monument.
• Cist: A cist or kist was used as encasements for dead bodies. It might have associations with
other monuments. It would not be uncommon to find several cists close with each other in
the cairn or barrow. The presence of ornaments within an excavated cist, indicate the wealth
or prominence of the interred individual.
Monolithic type
• Menhir: A Menhir is a stone Monolithic standing vertically. It could also exist as part of a
group of similar stones. They have different sizes with uneven and square shapes, often
tapering towards the top. Menhirs are widely distributed across different continents viz.,
Europe, Africa, and Asia, but are most commonly found in Western Europe; in particular in
Ireland, Great Britain and Brittany. Their origin dates back to pre-history. They are members
of a larger Megalithic culture that flourished in Europe and beyond.
.
• Stone Circle: A Stone Circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle usually
dated to megalithic period. The arrangement of the stones may be in a circle, in the form of
an ellipse, or more rarely a setting of four stones laid on an arc of a circle. The type varies
from region to region.
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OR
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1.Menhir-2. Dolmenoid cist (or dolmen)-3. Topi-kal 4. Kudai-kals (or hood-stone)- 5. Cairn-
circle- 6. Multiple hood-stone- 7.Alignment (series of menhirs)
Important sites: According to archaeologists R.K. Mohanty and V. Selvakumar, around 2,200
megalithic sites can be found in peninsular India itself, most of them unexcavated. Even today, a
living megalithic culture endures among some tribes such as the Gonds of central India and the
Khasis of Meghalaya.
.
1. Adichanallur and Paiyampalli in Tamil Nadu;
2. Porkalam in Kerala;
3. Brahmagiri, Hallur, Maski, Sanganakallu, Tekalakota and Banahalli, close to the Kolar mines,
in Karnataka;
4. Nagarjunakonda and Yelleswaram in Andhra Pradesh;
5. Naikund, Mahurjhari, Junapani, Talakghat, Khapa (all around the town of Nagpur) in
Maharashtra.
6. In northern India, these are found located in Allahabad-Mirzapur-Varanasi region of Uttar
Pradesh
7. Almora in Uttrakhand
8. Gufkral and Burzahom in Kashmir, and Leh in Ladakh.
9. The Megalithic structures are also reported from the Baluchistan area in Pakistan.
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10. In northeast of India, i.e., Assam and Meghalaya, the Megaliths constitute a part of a
tradition still living among the natives.
History of trait in India:
•
OR
In world- Neolithic Period to early Historic Period (2500BC-200AD)
• In India- majority of scholars- Iron Age (1500 BC-500 BC, though some sites precede iron
age- 2000 BC
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• Wheeler 1948- 2nd Century BC
2. (c) Examine the debates related to Ramapithecus
Approach
1. Introduction-
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2. Location
3. Lewis
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4. Simons
5. Pilbeam
6. Wilson and Sarich- Albumin Analysis
7. Pilbeam- repudiated
8. Ancestor of Modern-day Orangutan
Hints:
Ramapithecus- Great ape of india
Location- Shiwalik Hills, Fort Ternan- Kenya, Also located in Greece, Turkey and Hungary
1. Associated with humans:
a. Lewis- 1934: Based on dental and jaw remains, considered it a human ancestor
b. Supported by Leaky (remains from Fort Ternam, Kenya)
c. Reason for support:
.
i. Simons: Reduced canines of ramapithecus could have been a substitute of the usage
of tools
d. It was believed that Ramapithecus diverged from the common ape human line some 14-
12 mya and was in direct lineage of human ancestry
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2. Criticism:
a. OR
More fossils recovered- Ramapithecus had more non-hominid traits and more similarity
to orangutan
b. Wilson and Sarich- albumin analysis: The human-ape split occurred 8-6 mya, instead of
14-12 mya
3. Further research by Pilbeam:
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a. More fossils recovered: Inferences:

i. Ramapithecus- Miocene radiation complex of Dryopithecus leading to orangutan
4. Present status:
a. Debate is settled
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b. Palaeontologists today lump ramapithecus and shivapithecus together.

c. Ramapithecus is considered to be the female counterpart of Ramapithecus
Additional Reading
Sivapithecus
Introduction
1. Sivapithecus is best known from later Miocene deposits of Greece, Turkey and Indo-Pakistan,
dating back from 7 to 11 million years.
2. Included with it here’s another group of fossils called Ramapithecus, once thought to be
distinct, but now recognized as belonging to the same group.
3. The name Sivapithecus has priority over Ramapithecus because it was established in the
scientific literature first, so this is the name used. Their names were derived from the Indian
gods Rama and Siva, as the first fossils of this group were found in India.
Time Period and Climate
1. The earliest Sivapithecus remains found so far are about 17 million years old, and the most
recent are about 8 million years old
.
2. Late Miocene period
Geographical distribution
1. The first fossils of this group were found in India, but the most significant recent finds
have come from Pakistan and Turkey.
2. From the latter there is a very large collection dating back as far as 13 million years, which
provides both the earliest record of hominoids living outside Africa, and the first record
of Sivapithecus
Geographical distribution in India
1. The Sivapithecus specimens are identified from four regions in the Siwalik hills
1. Potwar plateau of Pakistan,
2. Ramnagar in India
3. Hari Talyanagar in India, and
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4. Churia in Nepal.
2. Most Potwar plateau specimens come from three precisely dated intervals separated by
3.
OR
temporal gaps of approximately 0.7 to 1.0 million years ago.
As far as the Siwalik group of India is concerned, most specimens are found at Hari Talyanagar
and a few from near Ramnagar.
Characteristic features
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1. Sivapithecus shares with the orangutan several features of the skull and face that are almost
certainly derived within the Hominoidea, and some of which are uniquely shared to the
exclusion of all other simian primates. These include
1. Concave face
2. The absence of a bony sinus in the brow area of the skull.
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3. A very narrow bony partition between the eyes

4. Vertically elongated orbits and,
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5. A set of features in the sub-nasal area that relates to the way the hard palate joins the
premaxillary bone at the base of the nose where the incisors are embedded.
6. Smooth nasal floor
7. Enlarged central incisors
2. Forelimbs of Sivapithecus are monkey-like, implying quadrupedal walking and climbing.
Species
Currently three species are generally recognized
1. Sivapithecus indicus
1. fossils date from about 12.5 million to 10.5 million years ago.
2. Sivapithecus sivalensis
1. lived from 9.5 million to 8.5 million years ago.
2. It was found at the Potwar plateau in Pakistan as well as in parts of India.
.
3. Sivapithecus parvada
1. described in 1988, this species is significantly larger and dated to about 10 million years
ago.
Phylogenetic status
1. The fossil remains discovered in Europe and Asia suggests that Dryopithecus gave rise to at
least three genera between 10 and 15 million years ago.
2. These three genera are Sivapithecus, Gigantopithecus and Ramapithecus.
3. The first two genera primates have face as large as modern chimpanzee and gorilla. However,
Ramapithecus had a small face which shows similarity to later hominids.
4. Simons and Pilbeam in 1965 reviewed fossil discoveries and suggested that all the varied
forms of fossil remains actually belong to two species only. They indicated Sivapithecus as
one, the species form which was basically ape-like and thus it can be considered as an ape
ancestor and the other was Ramapithecus which possess a number of hominid characters
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and thus regarded as an early hominid ancestor. However, more recent studies cast doubt
about it but the view was extent in 1977.
5.
OR
Lipson & Pilbeam and Andrews and Cronin in 1982 suggested that the two forms that are
Sivapithecus and Ramapithecus are actually one single species group with the males and
females of a sexually dimorphic species group.
6. The discoveries from Yunnan strongly suggest that the two species evolved there. One of
the major evidence from Yunnan is a large creature with larger dental features, sexual
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dimorphic, large canine dimorphism and heights, and areas with more herbivorous dentition.
This has been identified as Sivapithecus ape-like features.
7. Comparatively, the other creature is smaller and possesses smaller dental features, sexually
dimorphic, smaller canine dimorphism, large canine heights and areas with more omnivorous
dentition. Thus it is attributed that we would not deny that it is a adaptive radiation of pre-
human form
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Ramapithecus vs Sivapithecus
1. The teeth of Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus are difficult to distinguish when in isolated
form except on the basis of size.
2. The front teeth especially the upper central incisors of Sivapithecus are often quite large
while the canine is fairly good sized.
3. The most distinctive aspect of Sivapithecus dentition is seen in the back tooth row, where
molars are large, flat wearing, and thick enamelled. Facial remains of them have concave
profiles and projecting incisors.
4. However, the Ramapithecus teeth are smaller and show less canine dimorphism than
Sivapithecus though larger than the Pliocene hominid Australopithecus afarensis.
5. Sivapithecus was slightly larger than Ramapithecus, it was only a small-to-medium-sized
ape about the size of a modern chimpanzee
Relation with Orangutans
1. Recent finds of Sivapithecus (including Ramapithecus) provide strong evidence for shared
ancestry with orangutans.
.
2. This relationship is indicated by the many characters of the face, nose and palate that are
uniquely shared by orangutans and Sivapithecus, while absent in other primates.
3. According to Andrews & Stringer, it was previously thought that Ramapithecus was an
early hominid, ancestral to humans, but since the orangutan shares ancestors with this group,
it is only distantly related to humans.
Such findings especially in India, have put a great impetus on the palaeoanthropology in India
and put India on the world map of Prehistory.
3. (a) What is Archaeological Anthropology? Critically discuss the scope of
Archaeology and its main divisions.
Hints:
Archaeological Anthropology
Definition: Archaeological Anthropology is the branch of Anthropology concerned with
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exploration, collection, identification, classification and interpretation of antiquarian material and
environmental remains in order to reconstruct the chronological sequence of human past.
OR
Archaeological anthropology is interdisciplinary in its approach and it deploy the analytic
techniques of many scientific disciplines—botany, chemistry, computer science, ecology,
evolutionary biology, genetics, geology, and statistics; and social science disciplines such as
philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology, among others—to recover
and interpret the material remains of past human activities.
In this sense, archaeology is a uniquely hybrid intellectual endeavour that requires knowledge of
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an eclectic, wide-ranging set of analytic methods and social theories to write the history of past
societies.
Aim of Archaeological Anthropology:
Reconstructing the material world of past societies as fully as possible is the proximate goal of
archaeology; interpreting the historical significance and cultural meaning of that material world
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is archaeology’s ultimate objective.

Scope:
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• Excavation of material, non-material (including paleontological) and environmental remains

• Classification and Knowledge creation
• Study of various socio-cultural and environmental Processes
• Interpretation of archaeological records
• Experimental Archaeology: Study of Tool types and technologies
• Environmental Archaeology: Past human environment/ Geoclimatic studies
• Settlement Archaeology: Settlement patterns
• Urban Archaeology: Urban networks and trade
• Paleontology: Study of fossils
• Ethnoarchaeology: Past Human behavior
• Marine Archaeology
.
• Ethology
• Conservation of heritage of man
Divisions:
• Prehistory
• Proto History
• History
Methodologies:
• Environmental Archaeology
• Settlement Archaeology
• Ethnoarchaeology
• Experimental Archaeology
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• Ethology
• Marine Archaeology
Significance:
OR
• Reconstruction of human past
• Better understanding of socio-cultural and behavioral patterns of past.
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• Understanding of adaptation patterns

• Knowledge creation
• Public Archaeology
• Cultural Resource Management
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• Spreading Awareness about human past

• Climatic changes
• Helps in understanding of migration patterns
Conclusion: With the efforts of Lewis Binford, David Clarke and Ian Hodder, the scope of
Archaeological anthropology had broadened from mere classification of antiquities to the
understanding of the processes associated with them and even interpreting them. This expansion
of scope has generated a wealth of knowledge for holistic understanding of humankind.
3. (b) Discuss the main features of prehistoric rock art of Central India.
Approach
1. Introduction
2. Types of rock art
3. Sites in india
4. Inferences
5. Case study of bhimbhetka and its features
.
6. Significance
7. Continuity
Hints:
The Rock art represents the earliest evidence of aesthetic taste and expression of man in India
and constitutes a valuable source of visual information on the lives, beliefs and preoccupations of
the Prehistoric hunting and gathering communities.
It can be seen in the form of rock paintings (petrographs) and / or in the form of engravings,
cupules, etc. (petroglyphs).
The Rock Art Sites in India
• The rock paintings in India were first discovered by A. Carlyle on the walls and ceilings of
rock shelters in Distt. Mirzapur (U.P.) in 1867-68. Since then, more than one hundred and
fifty rock art sites have come to light. These are spread all over the Indian subcontinent from
the Himalayas in the north to Kerala in the south.
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• Their major concentration, however, is in Madhya Pradesh and central U.P. (south Mirzapur
region). Almost three-fourths of the total rock art sites in India are situated in the sand-stone
•
hills of the Vindhyas in central India
OR
This is primarily due to its unique geo-environmental set-up which favoured the evolution of
early human culture on the Central Indian plateau. This is therefore that the mountainous
region of the Vindhya and Satpura ranges which confine the Central Narmada Valley where
Stone Age man flourished, have the largest number of rock art sites.
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• The Vindhyan and Satpura ranges are fractured and elevated to such a way which produced
natural shelters and caves of the Block Mountains.
• These shelters could easily be occupied by early hunter-gatherers and pastorals whose
descendants, such as Gond, Muria, Korku, Bhilala, etc. tribal communities still thrive on
incipient or marginal farming and continue with their traditional lifestyles.
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Bhimbetka rock art shelters in the Vindhya Range and the Adamgarh and Pachmarhi in the
Satpura are among the most important rock art sites in India
• As for the line drawings, the evidence has come from the regions which include Chilas in
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Gilgit-Karakorum area, Leh in Ladakh, Burzahom in Kashmir, and Koppugallu and

Sanaganakallu in Karnataka.
• It may be pointed out that Rock art sites, though these are distributed all over the country
and exhibit regional variations, reflect broad uniformity in terms of subject matter, technique,
style and the pigments used.
Some inferences:
It may be pointed out that the Prehistoric paintings normally project males as more conquering
and domineering than women.
Women are no doubt depicted in hunting scenes but they are never shown as part of the active
hunting group, and stand aloof with digging sticks. They are normally portrayed as involved in
less hazardous activities such as vegetable and food gathering or fish and rat catching or working
on querns and rubber stones.
Thus, as Neumayer [1993: 76, 100] observes, the Indian Prehistoric rock paintings clearly depict a
sex-defined or “sex-based division of labour.”
.
While some scholars believe that these paintings may have been the medium to express and
explain the thoughts and planning, perhaps on hunting tactics, before the advent of the language,
many others relate them with Prehistoric man’s magico-ritual urge and suggest that painted
rock shelters might have been the places for performing sacred rituals.
The latter presumption is based on the fact that the most profusely painted shelters have little or
j no indication of human occupation as they contain no evidence of smoke or other organic
material, whereas shelters indicating long occupation are poor in paintings [Mathpal: 1984]. The
ritual function of the painted shelters is also attested from the ethnological studies on the life of
the Australian aborigines.
K. L. Kamat observed that many of them are not planned or organised nicely; not have taken the
trouble even to erase the older paintings and drawings. There are several overlaps of layers of
sketches on one another. We can separate them through colour and style differences. Most probably,
these were created as a means of escape from suffering and as devotion to supernatural entity
since there are red, green, and white colours in all hues and varieties used to decorate the dead.
Case study of Bhimbhetka:
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Location:
• Bhimbetka rock-art-site is in the Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh
•
OR
The site looks like a huge fortified segmented ridge from a short distance. The rocky terrain
covered by dense forest at the southern edge of the Vindhyan hills
Associated scholar:
• Bhimbetka finds first mention in Indian Archaeological Records (1888) as a Buddhist site,
but its painted rock shelters were first discovered in 1957-58 by an Archaeologist Dr. Vishnu
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Wakankar of Ujjain. Without being much aware of the paintings the local villagers used to
assemble on the hilltop for annual fair of Shivaratri in the month of March.
Features:
• The rock shelter complex of Bhimbetka exhibits the earliest pictorial traces of prehistoric
man’s life in the Indian Sub-continent. It is a natural art gallery-complex of prehistoric man
and a land of archaeological treasures serving as an invaluable historical chronicle since the
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Palaeolithic through the Mesolithic until early history. Bhimbetka rock-shelters were also
inhabited by the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic man as is evident from stone tools, and for its
quantum and quality of rock paintings as well as for its surroundings still inhabited by
primitive tribes who continue with the Stone Age traditions, it has been declared as an
important World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the year 2003.
• The paintings at Bhimbetka are found on the walls, ceiling and hollows in the shelters. They
are made in red and white colours and less commonly in green, yellow and black colours
derived from minerals in the rocks and earth.
• According to Yasodhra Mathpal and Somnath Chakraverty, there are about 6214 rock art
motifs in Bhimbetka predominated by zoomorphs (animal art) and a combination of them
with human figures (anthropomorphs). A series of hunting scenes of archers are remarkable
in Bhimbetka representing inter- group conflicts and probably within the group clashes as
well. The paintings of the later period have human figures and designs in geometric pattern
as well as other ritualistic/ religious symbols and conch–shell inscriptions.
Subject matter:
• The subject matter of Prehistoric art consists primarily of wild animals and hunting scenes.
A great variety of animals are depicted, and these include deer, nilgai, wild buffalo, boar,
rhino, tiger, etc. At some sites such as Lakhajuar near Bhimbetka, fish is a common theme.
Phase 9: Geometric human figures, designs; known religious symbols and inscriptions
Significance:
1. They provide a unique opportunity to understand the origins of human mind and serve as
source for studying the material culture of the society in its ecological setting.
2. These along with other oral traditions, myths and legends of the tribal people help social
scientists to reconstruct the ethno-history.
Contintuity:
Rock art has been a constant feature of Indian civilization. With humble beginnings in sites like
Bhimbhetka, the rock art gradually progressed to the building of magnificent viharas and chaityas
which saw a culmination in the ajanta and ellora cave art.
3. (c) Delineate the salient characteristics of Narmada man and examine its
phylogenetic significance.
Approach
1.
2.
3.
Features RE
Introduce with discovery and findings from Hathnora along with the timescale.
Debate on Phylogenetic status

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4. Conclude with what is the present status.
Hints:
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The discovery in 1982 of a fossilized skull in the central Narmada valley in Madhya Pradesh,
India, provides the first scientifically recorded evidence of human skeletal remains from the Indian
subcontinent dating to the late Middle Pleistocene of 300,000 to 150,000 years ago.
Dr. Arun Sonakia of the Geological Survey of India found the fossil exposed on the ground
surface of a thick Quaternary sediment of fluvial origin and embedded in a fossiliferous gravel
conglomerate on the north bank of the Narmada river. This is near the village of Hathnora and
some 40 km northeast of Hoshangabad town.
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• Preserved parts of the specimen are the left side of the cranial vault, most of the base of the
skull, and the left half of the brow ridges and orbit.
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• Hence, it is a calvaria, not a complete skull with a full face including upper and lower
jaws. Teeth are absent.
• In 1997, an announcement was made of the finding of a hominid right clavicle from Middle
Pleistocene deposits in the Hathnora region during field explorations between 1983 and
1992, a bone that Dr. A. A. Sankhyan of the Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta,
associates with the Narmada Man calvaria and describes as having belonged to a female the
size of a modern adult pygmy of “stocky” build.
Narmada Man, rather men, is known by the cranial and postcranial fossil remains representing
two types of archaic hominins or human populations.
Cranial Remains
A partial right portion of the skullcap (calvaria) Narmada Man was discovered from Hathnora
in Central Narmada valley during 1982 by Arun Sonakia of the Geological Survey of India, who
reported the finding in 1984 in the Records of the Geological Survey of India. Detailed studies
on it were conducted by M.A. de Lumley in France during 1985, and in USA during 1991 by
Kenneth A.R. Kennedy.
The calvaria show a mosaic of H. erectus and “archaic” H. sapiens characters.
Sr. The main Homo erectus The important Homo Important “unique
No. characters include: sapiens characters traits features” in Narmada
include Cavaria infrequent/absent
in erectus and modern
sapiens are:
1. Small mastoid process A relatively high The furrowing of the sagittal
elevation of the cranial ridge along the top of the
vault Cranial Vault.
2. Narrow post-orbital The landmarks bregma A large external auditory
constriction and vertex are not meatus (ear hole)
coincident
3. Maximum breadth across The most posterior point An unusually long temporal
the mastoid in the instrumental bone.
calibration of maximum
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cranial length falls
OR superior to the landmark
inion (where it lies in
erectus skulls)
4. Prominent torus angularis The estimated cranial
capacity is between 1155
and 1421 cubic centimetres.
This on the contrary
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averages at about 1000

cubic centimeters in erectus.
Phylogenetic status:
In Sonakia’s description, published in 1984 in the Records of the Geological Survey of India, he
assigned “Narmada Man” to the hominid taxon Homo erectus narmadensis.
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• Its antiquity is based upon the direct association of the calvaria with stone tools, mainly
handaxes and cleavers, typical of the prehistoric Acheulian technological tradition that
was dominant in Middle Pleistocene times in India.
• The fossilized animal remains in the deposit—cattle, buffalo, elephant—include some species
that are now extinct, but they are reliable “index fossils” of the late Middle Pleistocene.
• Radiometric dating methods are not feasible, so the age of the specimen is a relative dating
estimate based upon its lithic and faunal associations.
• By 1988, reexaminations of the calvaria had been undertaken independently by biological
anthropologists from the Laboratory of Human Paleontology and Prehistory at Marseille in
France and from the Human Biology Laboratory at Cornell University at Ithaca in the United
States.
• The French investigator, Dr. Marie-Antoinette de Lumley, recognized that some physical
features of the calvaria were not typically those found in Homo erectus fossils from
southeast Asia, China, and Africa.
• For example, the cranial capacity of these Early and Middle Pleistocene specimens averages
1,000 cm3, but estimates for the Narmada cranial vault fell between 1,155 and 1,421 cm3,
values within the range of anatomically archaic Homo sapiens.
• Dr. de Lumley christened Narmada Man as an “evolved Homo erectus.” This label is
acceptable to those biological anthropologists who profess that anatomically modern humans
have a lineage that includes Homo erectus as an ancestral species, the anatomically archaic
hominids of the Middle and Late Pleistocene (called Homo heidelbergensis) having an
intermediate status in this evolutionary progression.
• Aside from learned debates over this matter, the American investigator, Dr. Kenneth A. R.
Kennedy, broadened de Lumley’s observations by an extensive examination of the calvaria
using measurements, morphological analyses, and statistical procedures that support the thesis
that Narmada Man (actually a young adult female) merited reassignment as an early Homo
sapiens.
• The specimen was compared with crania of other hominid fossils of the Middle Pleistocene
(Bodo, Kabwe, Petralona, Dali, Ngandong, Saldanha, Sambungmachen, and those from
other sites in Africa, Asia, and Europe), with which it exhibited a significant number of
anatomical similarities.
• The archaeological data do not rule out the possibility that Homo erectus had inhabited the
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Indian subcontinent, but fossil remains of this species have not been recovered.
The importance of the Narmada calvaria is that it demonstrates that the Acheulian tool
tradition was practiced by early sapiens in a part of the world that lies between the richer
hominid fossil sites in Africa and in southeast Asia and the Far East. It is the most ancient
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hominid fossil recovered in India at the time of this writing.
But, scholars remained divided on the status of Narmada calvaria as either “evolved” H. erectus
or “archaic” H. sapiens, but, recently many favour it as H. heidlebergensis.
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4. (a) Relationship between Social anthropology and behavioral sciences.
Hints:
Relationship between Social Anthropology and behavioral sciences:
Social Anthropology and Anthropology are closely related disciplines. Psychology is the study of
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human mental processes like emotions, memory, perception and the formation of personality.
Anthropology also studies human cognition to know about the world view of individuals and
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societies and the sum total impact of all these experiences on human personality. Thus, a union
of both the disciplines is quite natural.
Similarities and Interdependence:
1. Both are concerned with the study of human behaviour and divergence in it with the change
in social context.
2. Use of common tools like observation, schema and consensus theories, rorschach tests to
assess personality of individuals.
3. Both disciplines study the factors behind the formation of human personalities.
4. An effort is made to formulate universal nomothetic theories via generalizations.
A confluence of the two disciplines can be seen in the:
• Use of psychic unity concept in anthropology
• Rise of Culture-Personality school and Cognitive School of Anthropology and the consequent
theories of culture patterns, basic and modal personality, consensus and schema theories, etc
Differences:
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OR
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Like sociologists and economists, most psychologists do research in their own society. Anthropology
again contributes by providing cross-cultural data. Statements about human psychology can not
be based solely on observations made in one society or a single type of society. The area of social
anthropology known as psychological anthropology studies cross-cultural variation in psychological
traits. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and others attempted to find out different patterns and
psychological traits among different cultures.
Both social anthropology and psychology deal with the same basic subject matter, people in
relation with other people. Psychology is mainly concerned with the nature and functioning of
individual human minds. Social anthropology is more keenly interested in the study of various
forms and structure of groups and organizations. Its unit of study is society. It tries to find out
types of society, their function, structure, origin and development. But psychology is not basically
interested in society and their forms. It is interested in the study of an individual’s behavior.
Broadly speaking social anthropology studies the culture and social system in which the individuals
live rather than the individuals themselves. But the individual and society can not exist separately
from each other. Thus the subject matter is almost the same but with the difference in emphasis.
Regarding the importance of psychology in social anthropology, John Beattie states, “In fact every
field anthropologist must be, to a considerable extent a practicing psychologist, for a main part of
his job is to discover the thinking of those people whom he studies, and this is never a simple
task. Ideas and values are not given as data; they must be inferred, and there are many difficulties
and dangers in such inferences, especially when they are made in the context of an unfamiliar
culture. It may well be that there is much to be learned about the less explicit values of other
cultures (as well as about those of our own), especially about the kinds of symbolism involved in
ritual and ceremonial, through techniques of depth psychology. But a word of warning is necessary.
The incautious application in unfamiliar cultures of concepts and assumptions derived from
psychological researchers in western society may lead – and indeed has led – to gross distortions.
The Oedipus complex, for example, is something to be proved, not assumed, in other cultures.
Nevertheless it is likely that as psychologists increasingly work in cultures other than their own
(and they are doing this) profitable collaboration between them and social anthropologists will
take place”
Conclusion:
The interdisciplinary approach of Anthropology and psychology have a profound impact on
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different emerging fields like Criminology, Ethology, etc. The tangible applications include - National
character studies of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead.
The FBI has used such approaches for profiling criminals in the form of sociopaths, psychopaths,
etc. Thus, with such applications, new vistas of research have come to light.
4. (b) Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis
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Hints:
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Linguistic Relativity
• Language and thought (or “cognition”) tend to interact in a dual and cyclical relationship, a
theory known overall as linguistic relativity.
• What one thinks becomes what one communicates, and what one communicates can lead to
new thoughts.
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• There are several different theories that aim to discuss the relationship between cognition
and language:
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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: (Language impacting cognition)

There is general agreement that culture influences language. But there is less agreement about the
opposite possibility—that language influences other aspects of culture. Edward Sapir and Benjamin
Lee Whorf suggested that language is a force in its own right, that it affects how individuals in a
society perceive and conceive reality.
Case Study
In comparing the English language with Hopi, Whorf pointed out that English-language categories
convey discreteness with regard to time and space, but Hopi does not. English has a discrete past,
present, and future, and things occur at a definite time. Hopi expresses things with more of an idea
of ongoing processes without time being apportioned into fixed segments. According to Ronald
Wardhaugh, Whorf believed that these language differences lead Hopi and English speakers to see
the world differently.
One approach that may reveal the direction of influence between language and culture is to study
how children in different cultures (speaking different languages) develop concepts as they grow
up. If language influences the formation of a particular concept, we might expect that children will
acquire that concept earlier in societies where the languages emphasize that concept. For example,
some languages make more gender differences than others. Alexander Guiora and his colleagues
have studied children growing up in Hebrew-speaking homes (Israel), English-speaking homes (the
United States), and Finnish-speaking homes (Finland). Hebrew has the most gender emphasis of
the three languages; all nouns are either masculine or feminine, and even second-person and plural
pronouns are differentiated by gender. English emphasizes gender less, differentiating by gender
only in the third-person singular (she or her or hers; he or him or his). Finnish emphasizes gender
the least; although some words, such as man and woman, convey gender, differentiation by gender
is otherwise lacking in the language.Consistent with the idea that language may influence thought,
Hebrew-speaking children acquire the concept of stable gender identity the earliest on the average,
Finnish-speaking children the latest.
Criticism:
1. Lenneberg, Chomsky and Pinker criticized him for insufficient clarity in his description of
how language influences thought, and for not proving his conjectures.
2. One of the serious problems in testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that researchers need to
figure out how to separate the effects of other aspects of culture from the effects of language.
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3. The hypothesis has been largely abandoned by linguists as it has found at best very limited
experimental support, and it does not hold much merit in psychology.
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4. For instance, studies have not shown that speakers of languages lacking a subjunctive mood
(such as Chinese) experience difficulty with hypothetical problems.
5. Different words mean different things in different languages; not every word in every language
has a one-to-one exact translation in a different language. Because of these small but important
differences, using the wrong word within a particular language (because you believe it to
SC
mean something else) can have dire consequences.

6. The canonical example of studying linguistic relativity is in the area of color naming. Sapir
and Whorf, as believers in linguistic relativity, would believe that people whose languages
partition the color spectrum along different lines actually perceive colors in a different way.
However, recent research has supported the idea that human color perception is governed
more by biological and physical rather than linguistic constraints, regardless of how many
GS
color words a language has.

7. Malotki used evidence from archaeological data, calendars, historical documents, modern
speech and concluded that there was no evidence that Hopi conceptualize time in the way
Whorf suggested.
Conclusion:
Pinker often see Malotki’s study as a final refutation of Whorf’s claim about Hopi, whereas relativist
scholars such as Lucy and Penny Lee criticized Malotki’s study for mischaracterizing Whorf’s
claims and for forcing Hopi grammar into a model of analysis that doesn’t fit the data.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (Cognition impacting Language)
• According to the theory that drives cognitive-behavioral therapy, the way a person thinks
has a huge impact on what she or he says and does.
• Founded by Aaron T. Beck, this school of thought discusses the interplay among emotion,
behavior, language, and thought. Since internal dialogue is a form of language, the way we
speak to ourselves can influence our daily lives.
• Problems with our internal dialogue, known as cognitive distortions, can lead to negative
behaviors or serious emotional problems.
4. (c) Relevance of Physical Anthropology
Hints:
RELEVANCE OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY:
1. Definition of physical anthropology
2. Change in scope with the rise of new physical anthropology
3. Mention some of the significance + Examples
4. Future course of the discipline.
Paul Broca, father of Physical Anthropology defines it as the natural history of the genus Homo
and more concretely as the science whose objective is to study humanity as a whole and in
relationship to rest of the nature.
New Physical anthropology is the new avatar of physical anthropology, which is broad,
interdisciplinary, comparative, evolutionary as well as holistic, justifying the true nature of the
Relevance:
1.
RE
discipline. It differs from classical Physical anthropology in its nature, scope, methods used as
well as the relevance.
Expansion in the contours of anthropology and enhancing its interdisciplinary nature by

O
including subject matter from different disciplines like psychology, geography, palaeontology
etc to enquire into the biological nature of humans
2. Promoting ease of living via kinanthropometry.
SC
3. Increasing longevity of human life by production of newer vaccines, hormones, gene therapy
etc.
4. Conducting genomic studies on a global level (Human genome project) to better understand
the racial peculiarities, genetic polymorphisms and disease susceptibility.
5. Debunking myths- racism
S
6. Development of specialized fields- palaeo-primatogy, Molecular Anthropology, ethology etc

G
7. Nutritional anthropology
8. Studying human adaptations and devising new cultural means for adapting to the changing
environment
9. Eugenics
Conclusion: NPA had expanded the horizons of anthropology substantially, justifying its true
nature as being the true and total science of the entire mankind at all times and all places.
Additional Reading:
Physical Anthropology comprises biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability
and variation, primatology, and the fossil record of human evolution. Physical Anthropology
thus reflects an important scenario in today’s increasingly specialised world of science.
DEFINITIONS OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• Paul Broca, father of Physical Anthropology defines it as the natural history of the genus
Homo and more concretely as the science whose objective is to study humanity as a whole
and in relationship to rest of the nature.
• Herskovits identifies that physical anthropologists study such matters as the nature of racial
differences; the inheritance of bodily traits; the growth, development and decay of human
organisms; the influence of the natural environment on man.
• According to Juan Comas, it is defined as science which studies variation, comparative study
of the human body and its inseparable functions, exposition of the causes and courses of
human evolution, transmission and classification, effects and tendencies in the functional
and organic differences, etc.
History and Development
The earliest interest of humans in comparative biology can be found from the writings of :
• Herodotus, who mentioned the differences in the skulls of Persians and Egyptians.
• Aristotle considered man as a social animal.
• Edward Tyson (1650-1708), prominent founders of Primatology. He conducted first systematic
research in 1699 on anatomical differences between humans and apes. This facilitated interest
E
in knowing the origin and nature of the human race, which led to the beginning of physical
anthropology.
• Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), a German physician (student of Carl Linneaus), is
OR
considered as to be the first prominent physical anthropologist, who invented craniology
through which he had made 5 major classifications of the human races (Caucasian,
Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian and American) on the basis of skull findings.
– Debates related to human races being monogenous and polygenous.
SC
– J.C.Pritchard, English physician and Ethnologist-supported monogeny, believed that all

races were derived from Adam conforming to the biblical notion of procreation.
– American Physician, Samuel George Morton (1786-1848), advocated polygeny, humans
came from various species leading to various races. He used anthropometric measurements
to study human physical variation.
• Anthropological Society of Paris, first in the field of Anthropology, was founded in 1859 by
GS
a French surgeon, Paul Broca (1824-1880). He set up an anthropological laboratory the

previous year, which subsequently became the Centre for a training program for
anthropologists. Broca followed the tradition of Samuel Morton. Most of the activities of
these early physical anthropologists could be categorized as racial craniology.
– Broca emphasised that it was incorrect to attribute the huge diversity in races due to
degeneration and also argued that it would be degrading to believe the diversity of
racial variation as degeneration from a single superior species.
– Paul Broca along with other French physical anthropologists intensified their work on
cranial anatomy and other small variations.
• Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) stressed on the fact that the variation observed in the human
form is a result of environment and disease upon the human body, and the lack of fit among
race, nation, and culture.
• Thomas Henry Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature (1863) endeavored to apply Darwinism to
appreciate the origins of humans. Thus Primatology focused on anatomy and looked for
primate evolution from paleontological records.
• It was Ernst Haeckel (1834- 1919) in Germany who published an encyclopedia of primate
anatomy and came up with the first scientific phylogenetic trees. It was because of these
efforts that made us understand what we are today, with anatomy remaining the focal point
until after 1900.
• Subsequently, with the advent of the nineteenth century, it was anthropometry which came
more in limelight by becoming more sophisticated under the patronage of Karl Pearson
(1857-1936), co-founder and editor of the journal, Biometrika. It goes to the credit of Karl
Pearson who treated the measurements of bones and bodies to statistical tests which made
the exercise more scientific including computations for variation and correlation, and tests of
significance for comparing samples. Physical anthropology was devoted to the study of racial
determinism– a philosophy that assumed the superiority of Caucasoids in the last half of the
nineteenth century
• Ales Hrdlicka (1860-1943) of the Smithsonian Institute played a very important role in the
development of physical anthropology in America. He established the American Journal of
Physical Anthropology in 1918.
• Earnest A. Hootan (1887-1954) introduced Physical Anthropology at Harvard University.He
trained Physical Anthropologists like Harry L. Shapiro and Carleton S. Coon.
•
•
RE
Franz Boas, at Columbia University, emphasized not only the variability of humans physically
but also emphasized on the study of human races in terms of culture.
Other Scholars
Juan Comas
O
4. (d) Neolithic Culture of NE India
Approach
SC
1. Distribution
2. Time Period
3. Key Findings:
4. Significance:
S
Hints:
Northeast India is a lesser-known area for archaeological research; however, it will be discussed
here in order to show the importance and potential for Neolithic research. Being a contact zone
G
of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asian countries, the region has a great diversity of cultural
material dating from prehistoric times.
A fresh approach with archaeological, linguistic and ethnographic evidence can be applied in
order to understand the relevance of Northeast India.
Characteristic Features: The archaeological comparison is based on three issues: viz. cord-
impressed pottery, shouldered celt, and rice agriculture, which aim to synthesize evidence
from different neighbouring areas to understand what they have in common and to provide
clues for further research.
The Neolithic culture of Northeastern India is distinguished by the predominance of shouldered
celts and the characteristic Cord-impressed pottery.
Uniqueness: Neolithic of NE has no parallels in Indian Subcontinent:
Within the sub-continent, The Neolithic culture of Northeastern India has no strict parallels within
the Indian subcontinent though the shouldered tool type has a sporadic distribution in the adjacent
states of Eastern India. However, as far as the Neolithic period is concerned, there appears to be
no doubt about the relationship between Northeastern India and the countries of Southeast Asia.
Name of the site Ceramic types References
Daojali Hading of Cord-impressed pottery; Incised pottery; Sharma, 1967
Assam Plain Fine Red ware
Kamla valley of Plain coarse ware; Cord-impressed Coarse Ashraf, 1990
Arunachal Pradesh Red ware; Stamped Coarse Brown/Red
ware; Stamped (square grid) Buff ware
Grooved; Coarse/Fine Buff ware;
Plain Brown ware
Phunan Hills of Plain wares; Stamped wares; Incised Singh, 1993
Manipur wares; Cord-impressed wares; wares with
circular spots and Appliqué wares.
Table: 2. Ceramic types of three important sites of Northeast India
The other excavated sites like Daojali Hading (Shrama, 1967), Sarutaru (Rao, 1973), Parsi-Parlo
(Ashraf, 1990), sites in Garo Hills (IAR, 1966-67, 67-68), and Manipur (Singh, 1993), have yielded
E
numerous potsherds, basically the Cord-impressed and other handmade wares. The fast moving
wheel was unknown to the Khasi (what about the other groups mentioned above?). The pottery
technique exhibits the survival of one of the oldest traditions of hand-modeling without decoration
OR
(isn’t cord impression and groove marks decoration?)
Significance:
T.C. Sharma (1991: 41-58) has pointed out that scholars all over the world are of the opinion
that the archaeology of Northeast India is very important for world archaeology, because of the
fact that this region is known to have played a great role in the domestication of a number of
SC
food producing plants essential for man, including rice. Archaeologists dealing with global
archaeological problems are very interested in the archaeological potential of Northeast India, as
is evident in the writings of Ian C. Glover (1985: 266), “India is the centre of greatest diversity of
domesticated rice with over 20,000 (over of 50,000) identified species and Northeast India is the
most favourable single area of the origin of domesticated rice.”
Pottery originated earlier than agriculture in East.
GS
The earliest evidence of pottery in China and Japan dates back to 21,000-18,000 cal. Yrs. B.P. The
early evidence of rice cultivation comes from the recent discoveries at sites like Yuchanyan (Yasuda
2002: 119), Hunan Province and Xianrendong (Yasuda 2002: 138) and Diaotonghhuan (Yasuda
2002: 119), and Jiangxi Province which date the origins of rice agriculture to more than 10,000
years ago.
Thus the origins of pottery and agriculture can not be presumed as being simultaneous. The
origin of pottery is much older than the origin of agriculture in East and Southeast Asia.
Similarity of cultures of North East India and South East Asia and East Asia:
The pottery of the cultures of East Asia and Southeast Asia is remarkably alike, and includes
simple forms of cord-impressed, combed, fingertip-impressed or incised vessels, often on tripods
and pedestals. The overall homogeneity of it makes it easy to visualize a common ancestral culture,
located quite close in time, from which all the descendent cultures of the Yellow river basin
originated (Bellwood, 2005: 121). Almost similar physio-graphic settings, in Northeast India,
leads one to think about the potential for cultural affinities with Southeast and East Asian countries.
The occurrence of potsherds and stone tools related to the cultivation system in the same
stratigraphic horizon at various sites like Daojali Hading, Sarutaru, Garo Hills, indicates
similarity in chronology for origin and evolution of pottery and agriculture during the Neolithic
period. It is most likely that due to its proximity to China and the Southeast Asian countries,
Northeast India was under the strong influence of these cultures during this period.
The three characteristic features of the Neolithic culture in Northeast India viz. celt making
traditions, Cord-impressed pottery, and rice agriculture, are more or less similar to the Neolithic
cultures of East Asia and Southeast Asia. A.H. Dani (1960) has demonstrated the similarity of
stone tools from the various regions of Northeast India with various parts of Southeast Asia and
East Asia.
Zone of NE India Related Zones in Southeast and East Asia
Cachar Hills Zone Upper Burma, communication through Manipur
Sadiya Frontier Zone Yunan of Southeast China
Naga Hills Zone Burma, Malaya, Siam, Laos, Yunan and Cambodia
Khasi Hills Zone Cachar Hills
Garo Hills Zone Cachar Hills
Brahmaputra Valley Zone Shantung province, Hong Kong, Naga Hills, Cachar Hills and
Garo Hills
RE
Table: 1. Northeast India and its relation with East and Southeast Asian countries, (Dani,
1960)
4. (e) Neolithic is called revolution not evolution. Why?
Approach
O
1. Explanation of the term
2. Scholar associated
SC
3. Time period
4. Revolutionary aspects and the consequences
5. Criticism
6. Conclusion- the after effects produced were revolutionary and when we see in hind sight,
it depicts a watershed moment in the past
S
Hints:
• The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition
G
of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering
to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible. These
settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants to learn how
they grew and developed. This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants.
• Term- Gordon Childe
• The earliest known civilization developed in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (c. 6,500 BP);
its emergence also heralded the beginning of the Bronze Age.
• The Levant saw the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000
BCE, followed by sites in the wider Fertile Crescent. (Catal Huyuk, Agrissa Meghula, Jerico)
Changes and consequences:
• Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals
happened in separate locations worldwide, starting in the geological epoch of the Holocene
11,700 years ago. It was the world’s first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. The
Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of foods available, resulting in a downturn
in the quality of human nutrition.
• The Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food-producing
techniques.
• During the next millennia it transformed the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers
that had hitherto dominated human pre-history into sedentary (non-nomadic) societies based
in built-up villages and towns. These societies radically modified their natural environment
by means of specialized food-crop cultivation, with activities such as irrigation and
deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food.
• Other developments that are found very widely during this era are the domestication of
animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses.
• In many regions, the adoption of agriculture by prehistoric societies caused episodes of rapid
population growth, a phenomenon known as the Neolithic demographic transition.
• These developments, sometimes called the Neolithic package, provided the basis for centralized
administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of
knowledge (e.g. writing), densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labour,
E
more trade, the development of non-portable art and architecture, and greater property
ownership.
•
OR
The relationship of the above-mentioned Neolithic characteristics to the onset of agriculture,
their sequence of emergence, and empirical relation to each other at various Neolithic sites
remains the subject of academic debate, and varies from place to place, rather than being the
outcome of universal laws of social evolution.
SC
GS

Criticism:
1. Revolution signifies a swift and sudden change but the changes that culminated in the
Neolithic period had commenced thousands of years back.
2.
occurring.
RE
A transitional stage- Mesolithic also occurred in between that signified the gradual changes
However, according to Childe, the tern revolution has been used to highlight the consequences of
the beginning of food production which marked a distinct shift in the socio-economic organization
of human communities. For Childe, food production was the greatest economic revolution in
O
human history after the invention of fire.
5. (a) Define anthropology. Discuss its relevance in Contemporary India.
SC
Approach
1. Definition of Anthropology
2. Relevance of all four branches:
3. Crisis in anthropology in India and sub-par applications
S
4. Way forward
Hints:
G
Anthropology is a systematic, holistic, integrated and universal study of human beings across all
levels, times and space. Due to its inherent unique nature and ever-expanding scope, its applications
are highly relevant to Indian society, as illustrated below:
• Physical anthropology:
– Genetic and Non-Disease- prevention, diagnosis, treatment, vaccine and hormone
production
– Anthropometry- to study the interplay of environment and genes on growth and
development
– Kinanthropometry- to optimize sports performance
– Ergonomics- for ease of living
– Population genetics and DNA mapping to know human biology even better
– Development and preservation of alternate ethno-medicinal practices for holistic well
being.
• Socio-cultural anthropology:
– Knowledge generation and understanding little traditions for tribal welfare, policy
planning and development.
– Reduction in paternalistic tendencies by promoting sensitivity via cultural relativism
– Cultural resource management: Preserving intangible pieces of Indian culture like
folkdances, music etc via according special statuses and providing funds (UNESCO
intangible heritage tag).
• Providing employment to traditional artists
GOI has come up with USTADD scheme to provide training to artists in traditional arts and
crafts
– Studying social change and alteration in power relations by using tools like dominant
caste, tribe caste continuum etc
E
– Understanding and providing remedies for ethnic conflicts like Naga insurgency, left
wing extremism etc. OR
• Linguistic anthropology:
– Preservation and scripting of dying languages: As per Ganesh Devy, after analysing
data of linguistic survey of india, already more than 250 languages have disappeared in
the past 50 years
– Understanding linguistic chauvinism and language based movements in the country
SC
and provide remedies for such confrontations.

• Archaeological anthropology:
– Development of museums for preservation of historical artifacts
– Salvage anthropology is the recording of the practices and folklore of cultures threatened
with extinction, including as a result of modernization. Awareness can also be spread
GS
regarding development projects in historically significant areas.

– Tourism promotion and development of brands like- Incredible India
Crisis in Indian anthropology:
Anthropology in India has failed to evolve its own distinct identity. While the global
anthropological enterprise in the past four decades has largely shifted from description of unique,
small, isolated groups to analytical, problem-oriented research, useful for cross-cultural comparison,
anthropology in India still follows the colonial anthropologists’ footsteps of studying marginalized
peoples and their process of integration into the ‘mainstream’. Poverty of ideas in anthropology
will be overcome if Indian practitioners learn to identify plethora of social problems afflicting
Indian society, and operationalise and actualise ideas in response to them.
Anthropologists need to be recognized as social doctors so that administrators as generalists and
anthropologists as specialists can work together in unison to remove the woes of Indian population.
5. (b) Discuss the relationship between sociology and anthropology.
Hints:
Anthropology and Sociology are closely related disciplines.
Sociology is a science of society that studies human behavior in groups. It studies human societies,
their interactions, and the processes that change and preserve them.
Anthropology is a science of man and studies human behavior in social surroundings. Thus, it is
clear that the subject matter of sociology and social anthropology is common to a great extent.
View of anthropologists on the relationship:
• Hoebel states that sociology and social anthropology in their broadest senses are one and the
same.
• As per A.L Kroeber, Sociology and Anthropology are twin sisters.
• Evans Pritchard takes social anthropology as a branch of sociological studies that devoted to
primitive societies.
• Radcliffe-Brown suggests that anthropology be renamed Comparative Sociology.
• Concerning the tendency in the United States, Levi-Strauss wants to regard sociology as a
special form of anthropology.
Similarities:
• RE
Both sociology and anthropology are synoptic sciences, i.e., they study social behavior in
relation to different people, circumstances, and surroundings.
O
• They both share an interest in the issues of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, etc.
• They both share the same theoretical approaches like functionalism to understand the unity
and diversity of social life.
SC
Despite the above similarities, there are differences with respect to themes like approach, subject
matter, techniques, applications, etc.
Differences:
According to Barrett, Social anthropology usually has been defined as the study of other cultures,
employing the technique of participant observation and collecting qualitative data. Social
S
anthropology is similar to but not identical with sociology, at least in terms of how each discipline
has developed since the last century.
G
Even though social anthropology and sociology share an interest in social relations, organization
and behavior, there are important differences between these two disciplines.
John Beattie points out the difference in the area of study. He writes, “ …sociology is by definition
concerned with the investigation and understanding of social relations, and with other data only
in so far as they further this understanding, social anthropologists, although as we have seen
they share this concern with sociologists, are interested also in other matters, such as people’s
beliefs and values, even where these cannot be shown to be directly connected with social behavior.
In brief, social anthropologists are cultural anthropologists as well. For example, people’s religious
and cosmological ideas do not necessarily reflect their social system, though it has sometimes
been assumed that they do. And even where such relationships can be established, the
anthropologist’s interest in people’s ideas is by no means exhausted when these connections have
been pointed out. He is interested in their ideas and beliefs as well as in their social relationships,
and in recent years many social anthropologists have studied other people’s belief systems not
simply from a sociological point of view, but also as being worthy of investigation in their own
right.”
Social systems studied by anthropologists are usually face-to-face in relation.
It is true that a great deal of sociological research has been done in small groups, but these have
usually been small groups in larger societies and not groups that are more or less coterminous
with the whole society. This concern with social systems that are small in scale has led to a
particular concern by social anthropologists with the idea of totality, the notion that societies are
wholes, or at least can be studied as if they were.
Different methods of data collection and analysis emerged to deal with those different kinds of
societies. To study large-scale complex societies, sociologists use questionnaires and other means
of gathering masses of quantifiable data. Sampling and statistical techniques have been basic to
sociology. Traditional ethnographers studied small-scale societies without written records. One of
their key methods is participant observation – taking part in events one is observing, describing
and analyzing. In addition, social anthropologists have mostly worked in unfamiliar cultures.
That is why in anthropological field work, a sound knowledge of the language of the community
being studied is indispensable for a people’s categories of thought and the forms of their language
are inextricably bound together.
Sociologists usually suggest means for improvement along with its study. In comparison, the
study of anthropology is more neutral and the anthropologists do not offer suggestions.
E
OR
SC
GS

Conclusion:
Interdisciplinary collaboration is a hallmark of academic life today with ready borrowing of ideas
and methods between disciplines. Among contemporary societies which are neither primitive nor
industrially advanced, of which India may be taken as an example, the distinction between the
two disciplines has little meaning. Both carried out studies on the caste system, village communities,
industrialization, globalization, inter-city life, etc. Such an interdisciplinary approach could be
used to solve societal problems arising out of the aforementioned aspects via Action Anthropology.
5. (c) Discuss the characteristic features of Civilization with reference to Harappan
culture.
Hints:
According to Ogburn and Nimkoff, civilization is the latter phase of superorganic culture. Such
a culmination was seen in the post Neolithic period which was characterized by the rise of Bronze
age civilizations throughout the world.
RE
According to V. Gordon Childe, the 10 criteria of a civilization are:
• foreign trade,
• increased settlement size,
• writing, political organization based on residence rather than kinship,
O
• class-stratified society,
• representational art,
SC
• full-time specialists in non-subsistence activities,

• knowledge of science and engineering,
• large-scale public works and
• concentration of wealth.
S
• Childe also coined the term “urban revolution,” a phenomenon caused by growth of
technology and increased food supplies.
G
Features of Harappa:
• Range of Urban and Non-urban sites.
• Town Planning with defensive Walls and impressive gates (read town planning features
from 1st answer)
• Divisions of settlements (upper citadel and lower town)
• Excavation of graves show the class stratification with some graves buried with precious
stones, bronze implements, etc.
• Drains- civic sense
• Baked bricks 4:2:1
• Pottery- baked ; utilitarian purpose- storage of grains- It shows presence of a surplus.
• Script- writing on the seals; boustrophedon
• Craft techniques- terracotta figurines, bearded priest, dancing girl
• Etched Carnelian beads, copper-bronze artefacts, lithic blades
• Seals
• Weights and Measures- a uniform standard was evolved
• External trade- Indus valley civilization has been termed as Meluhha in the records of
Mesopotamian civilization.
• Evidence of big granaries in Harappa- redistribution of grains- shows the presence of a political
authority

E
OR
SC
GS

Anthropology: Test Series

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IAS 2022

1. Write short notes on the following in about 150 words:

(a) What is Archaeological Anthropology? Critically discuss the scope of Archaeology

• Kroeber, Bidney, Pritchard, Benedict- Historical and social science.

junction of various social sciences- sociology, psychology, history, literature etc.

2. Pritchard equated anthropology to historiography.

2. Anthropology has a huge scope, as delineated by its 4 fold division of Socio-cultural,

1. (b) Absolute dating Methods

1. Define Dating Methods

Dating Methods: Two types

Hints: Anthropology [3]

unstable) stage of higher energy.

susceptibility to producing thermoluminescence. In the laboratory, the trapped electrons are

Archaeological Applications and Limitations

most a few centuries off.

• The establishment of varve-chronologies outside Scandinavia, as attempted by Antevs (1925)

1. (c) Natufian culture

1. (d) New Archaeology Movement

Introduction: Interpretative Archaeology emerged in reaction to the functionalists and behavior-

of this School was Ian Hodder of Cambridge University.

Archaeologist Nicholas David described clearly: ethnoarchaeology is an attempt to cross the

differentiated by matter, form, and context).

their interactions with people in activities.

• Ethno-archaeology emphasis more on explanation. Explaining how the archeological record

shorter than those of classical ethnography.

Hints: Anthropology [17]

could be because of lack of intensive regional survey.

• Cromlekh: Cromlekh is a British word used to describe prehistoric megalithic structures,

[24] Hints: Anthropology

• Wheeler 1948- 2nd Century BC

2. (c) Examine the debates related to Ramapithecus

a. More fossils recovered: Inferences:

b. Palaeontologists today lump ramapithecus and shivapithecus together.

3. A very narrow bony partition between the eyes

is archaeology’s ultimate objective.

• Excavation of material, non-material (including paleontological) and environmental remains

• Understanding of adaptation patterns

• Spreading Awareness about human past

[30] Hints: Anthropology

Gilgit-Karakorum area, Leh in Ladakh, Burzahom in Kashmir, and Koppugallu and

Debate on Phylogenetic status

averages at about 1000

4. (a) Relationship between Social anthropology and behavioral sciences.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: (Language impacting cognition)

mean something else) can have dire consequences.

color words a language has.

Expansion in the contours of anthropology and enhancing its interdisciplinary nature by

6. Development of specialized fields- palaeo-primatogy, Molecular Anthropology, ethology etc

– J.C.Pritchard, English physician and Ethnologist-supported monogeny, believed that all

a French surgeon, Paul Broca (1824-1880). He set up an anthropological laboratory the

Hints: Anthropology [45]

and provide remedies for such confrontations.

regarding development projects in historically significant areas.

Hints: Anthropology [49]

• full-time specialists in non-subsistence activities,

Hints: Anthropology [51]

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