Indian History: Early Period
- By different given point and time, the History of India has been divided into three parts –
- 1]Ancient
- 2]Medieval,
- 3] Modern period.
- The Ancient period starts from the earliest time to mid 8thcentury AD. While the changes were started during Gupta period.
- The Medieval period starts from the 7th-8th century AD. Many historians considered it from the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni over India. At last,
- Modern period started from the period of Plassey, 1757. Because the emergence of regional rulers and breakup of the Mughal Empire was the indication of proceeding towards modern period.
- *****The Ancient period (early to mid 8th century AD.)*****
- 1. Prehistoric period. ~ In this age, Human beings didn't know about writing or reading due to which there is no any written description of that age, referred as Prehistoric period.
- Prehistoric period is also known as early-man age or stone age. It is divided into three parts---
- 1)Palaeolithic age or old stone age (3 lakhs to 8,000 BC.)
- 2) Mesolithic age or late stone age (8,000 to 4,000BC)
- 3) Neolithic age or new stone age (4,000 to 1800 BC)
- 1) Palaeolithic age
- The occurrence of Human-beings found on the earth from 10 lakh years before.
- But Homo-sapiens (mentally fit human) were found generally from 30 to 40 thousand years before.
- Hunting was the main base of theirs livelihood, completely dependent on nature for food in Palaeolithic age.
- They used the skins of animals, barks of trees and large leaves as clothes.
- They were living in a organised way in groups consisting of a few men, women and children.
- The Fire was discovered in this age.
- This period is also known as a food - gatherer age.
- In this age, people had made stone weapon in which "stone-axe" was the first weapon among all made by them.
- maximum instruments of this age were found in Gujarat, Malwa, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Andhra pradesh and Orissa.
- People used utensils made of quartzite.
- 2) Mesolithic age •
- In this age, people started cattle rearing and plant cultivation.
- They made more pointed or crescentic weapons than before to hunt fast moving animals.
- People were used the utensils made up of microliths.
- Various Mesolithic sites are found in the Chotanagpur plateau in central India and also south of the river Krishna.
- The first site where Rice was found, "kolhadiwa (Uttar Pradesh)".
- The art of drawing were learnt by them in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic age.
- 3) Neolithic age.
- Neolithic communities are found mostly in the north-western region e.g. the Sulaiman and kirtar hills, in the Vindhayas in Deccan and the Garo hills in the north-east.
- Baluchistan was the oldest settlements of Neolithic communities.
- In this age, Human began to domesticate animals like the dog, goat and sheep firstly.
- Due to maximum yielding of crops, people were now settled in a community. This led to growth of villages.
- Due to cultivation, they were now using a heavy digging-stick used for digging the ground; a sickle used for harvesting crops; an axe used for cutting and felling trees; different types of potteries to store surplus grain mainly ochre-coloured pottery.
- The "wheel" was the most important discovery to take away & near anything. I mean to say "Transportation".
- After this period, the use of metals began. •
- Neolithic sites : Kashmir, Sindh, Bihar, Bengal, UP and Andhra Pradesh.
- CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD (mixture of stones and copper) from 1800 BC to 800AD.
- This is the period between of Neolithic and bronze age.
- At first, human used copper among all metals.
- In this age, Earth was worshipped as a goddess
- Zorway’s culture was the best culture in this age.
- The people of Zorway were used ornaments of gold, catche fishes and use "barter system" in their trade.
- They used utensils with tube
- Due to excess Drought, Chalcolithic culture was entirely diminished.
