Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation | CBSE Class 9 History Notes

This note covers human origins, archaeological evidence, stone tools, hunting and gathering, the beginnings of farming, early villages, the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, writing, trade and social organisation.

What were the origins of humans and their changing ways of life?

Biological and cultural change

Biological evolution means the gradual physical and genetic changes through which early ancestors developed into modern humans, called Homo sapiens. Cultural evolution concerns how humans adapted to their surroundings by developing tools, techniques and other technologies to use natural resources.

These adaptations occurred during the Quaternary Period, the last 26 lakh years, including the present. A lakh means one hundred thousand. Changes in climate and the environment form an important part of the background to both human evolution and changing ways of life.

Hominins are a group including modern humans and our early human-like ancestors. It is generally agreed that our earliest ancestors evolved and lived in Africa and began moving out of the continent around 2 million years ago.

Movement out of Africa

Homo erectus, an upright or bipedal human ancestor, was the first hominin to exit Africa. Bipedal means walking on two legs. Handaxes and cleavers found in Asia and Europe indicate dispersion beyond Africa between 2 and 0.5 million years ago.

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago. Another major movement out of Africa, around 125,000 years ago, was associated with early Homo sapiens. Modern humans are now spread throughout the world.

Homo habilis, meaning handy man, lived in Africa, especially in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and Kenya. Homo erectus made handaxes and cleavers. Homo neanderthalensis, another human ancestor, lived in Europe and Southwest Asia till about 40000 years ago and made flake tools, tools made from pieces struck off stone.

All human ancestors were tool makers, while Homo sapiens developed complex technologies. Homo sapiens are the only human species living on Earth today.

The earliest settlements in Africa, Asia and Europe belong to the Old World, the geographical area of the oldest early human settlements. Different kinds of human ancestors co-existed. Around 3.3 million years ago, one of these ancestors made the earliest stone tools.

Tools are sometimes called extra-corporal limbs because they function as extensions of the human body. They helped people do tasks that their hands alone could not accomplish. Over time, food production and surplus goods, production beyond immediate needs, laid the foundations for civilisation: societies with urban centres, trade, writing, administration and social organisation. Urban centres are towns and cities.

How do archaeological and written sources reveal early human history?

Evidence before writing

Archaeology studies the past through material remains. Artefacts are tools, implements and other objects made by humans. Archaeologists investigate tools, bones and objects at early human sites, and experiment with making and using similar tools to understand their production and purpose.

A fossil is a preserved remain, trace or impression of a plant, animal or human from the distant past. Some buried remains slowly turned into stone over thousands or millions of years. Tools and fossils help reconstruct early human lives.

Scripts and their interpretation

A script is a system of writing; to decipher it is to work out how to read and understand it. The Harappan script, also called Sindhu lipi, remains undeciphered. Its pictographic signs, or picture-based writing signs, occur on seals and pottery.

Cuneiform, the Sumerian system using wedge-shaped marks, began around 3200 BCE and was widely used across Mesopotamia by 3000 BCE. BCE means Before Common Era; CE means Common Era. These date labels differ from dates expressed as years ago.

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script, a writing system using pictorial signs, has also been deciphered. Pierre Bouchard found the Rosetta Stone in 1799 while repairing a fort in Egypt. It carried three types of writing, including readable Greek. Jean-François Champollion deciphered the Egyptian script in 1822.

Egyptian records include papyrus, sheets made from strips of the papyrus plant that were crossed, pressed, dried and polished. Libraries dating to 2000 BCE kept papyrus scrolls in labelled jars. Such records preserve stories as well as practical information.

Note: Writing emerged at different times in different regions. Written evidence makes dating relatively accurate; it does not make every date certain. An undeciphered script cannot yet reveal its contents in the way a deciphered script can.

How do archaeological ages and a timeline organise the past?

Changes in tools and subsistence

Periodisation means dividing history into periods. Early human periods reflect changes in tools, agriculture, lifestyles and settlements. Subsistence means the way people obtain what they need to live, especially food. Changes in subsistence accompanied changes in technology.

The Stone Age has three broad stages: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age; Mesolithic is the transitional phase between hunting-gathering and agriculture; Neolithic means New Stone Age and is associated with farming and settled life.

Chalcolithic means Copper and Stone Age, when copper and stone tools were used together. Metallurgy involves extracting and shaping metals. The Bronze Age involved mixing copper and tin to make bronze, while the Iron Age saw widespread iron working.

The chart places Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age labels along a line. Its boxes connect these periods with tools, food production, settlements and metalworking. The Neolithic Revolution is highlighted.

See Fig. 4.7 in your NCERT textbook

A timeline of selected developments

These dates locate developments in particular places. Farming did not begin simultaneously everywhere. A technological age describes a pattern of change; regional histories must still be studied separately. Approximate dates retain words such as “about” and “around”.

How did Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers use tools and communicate?

Tools for obtaining food

Hunter-gatherers obtained food by hunting animals and gathering available natural foods. Palaeolithic people used stone tools and lived in caves or open camps. In the Indian subcontinent, the oldest human settlement dates to about 2 million years ago.

Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu dates to about 1.5 to 1.7 million years ago; Isampur in Karnataka dates to 1.2 million years ago. Finds include animal fossils, large cutting tools such as handaxes and cleavers, and stone scrapers and choppers.

Smaller tools included scrapers, borers and points. Sharp points were fitted to projectiles, objects directed towards a target, improving hunting efficiency. Later developments included bows and arrows, parallel-sided blades and microblades made from glassy-textured rocks that were very sharp when freshly made.

Communication beyond speech and writing

Humans developed symbolic communication, expressing meanings through symbols. They painted cave and rock-shelter walls, decorated their bodies with pigments, and produced stone, bone and shell beads. A burin, or engraver, cut symbolic features into bones and shells, including ostrich eggs.

Microblades were fixed into handles for easier use. These developments are associated with Homo sapiens, who gradually spread throughout the world, including Australia and the Americas, between 50000 and 12000 years ago. Tools and art therefore illuminate different aspects of early human activity.

Why did Mesolithic ways of life change with the environment?

Warmer conditions and wider resources

Around 12000 years ago, Earth's climate became warmer. Forests and grasslands spread into areas formerly covered by ice sheets. These landscapes offered a wider variety of resources, including small game animals, fish and edible wild grains.

The greater variety of resources accompanied the first-ever population explosion, or rapid population increase, in human history. Mesolithic life remained closely connected to hunting and gathering, while this period formed a transition towards agriculture.

Microlithic tools were tiny stone tools. Their variety helped people obtain aquatic food, meaning food from water, from both marine and freshwater environments. Marine refers to the sea. Fishing was the mainstay of the subsistence economy.

Settlement and art

Mesolithic people began occupying temporary settlements near rivers and lakes. Caves and rock shelters were frequently occupied, and art activity flourished. Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh contains hundreds of painted rock shelters with Mesolithic and earlier human occupation.

Photograph: Cave art from Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh (NCERT Class 9 Figure 4.12). The photograph shows reddish painted figures on a rough rock surface. Human-like and animal-like outlines are visible. The photograph records painted rock art rather than a written account of the people who made it.

The sequence links environmental change with available food, tools and settlement. Warmer conditions expanded habitats and resources; tiny tools supported the collection of food from water; rock shelters also preserved traces of artistic activity.

Why was the transition to Neolithic farming a revolution?

From obtaining food to producing it

The Neolithic Revolution was the gradual transition to a food-producing way of life. Hunter-gatherers became familiar with seasons and different food resources. Its hallmark was domestication, bringing selected plants and animals under human control and developing new breeds through cultivation and animal husbandry.

Animal husbandry means raising and caring for animals. Neolithic farmers made tools for producing and processing food, developed pottery of different shapes and sizes, and used several raw materials. They established the first village settlements, laying the foundations for urban life.

Mehrgarh and regional variation

Mehrgarh, on the Bolan River in present-day Pakistan, was the Indian subcontinent's oldest Neolithic site and earliest agricultural village, dating to about 7000 BCE. Its inhabitants built handmade sun-dried brick houses and granaries, buildings for storing grain.

They grew wheat and barley, raised sheep, goats and Indian cattle, particularly the zebu humped bull, and buried their dead in graves. Ornaments used lapis lazuli, carnelian and shells. Copper objects brought them into the metal age, becoming known as Chalcolithic people by about 4000 BCE.

By 2500 BCE, most of the Indian subcontinent was occupied by Neolithic agricultural communities. Their way of life included cattle, sheep and goat herding, alongside cereals, millets and pulses. They sometimes interacted with contemporary Chalcolithic cultures in some parts of the country.

The term “revolution” refers to the scale of the change in food production and settlement. The transition was gradual and took place at different times in different regions. It connected farming, animal care, new tools, pottery and village life.

How did early settlements develop into the Harappan civilisation?

Farming, copper and continuity

The Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation is also called the Indus Valley or Harappan civilisation. The Neolithic way of life that emerged around 7000 BCE at Mehrgarh spread through the middle and upper Indus valley and further east.

Some settlements mastered copper extraction around 4000 BCE. Copper tools increased productivity in the fertile river-deposited plains of the Indus and Ghaggar-Sarasvatī basins. Large-scale pottery production developed diverse regional styles, while craft production and prosperity increased.

Some radio-carbon dates, dates estimated using radioactive carbon, suggest that at some sites in the dried Sarasvati river belt, such as Bhirrana and Kunal, the Pre-Harappan phase began between 7000 and 5500 BCE. This is a qualified interpretation of particular sites.

Many regional styles became standard features by about 2500 BCE. Continuity in pottery, stone beads, shell bangles, terracotta objects and copper working supports the description Early Harappan. Terracotta means fired clay. Perimeter walls, seals and Harappan writing probably began during this stage.

Crafts, measurements and water

Bead-production evidence comes from Harappa, Kunal and Datrana. Pottery markings and seals with geometric or simple animal motifs could be seen as forerunners of later writing and inscribed seals. Technology and economic integration contributed to the emergence of urban centres by 2600 BCE.

Harappan small weights followed a binary multiple system, doubling through 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on; larger units used multiples of ten. Standard weights supported interregional trade, while carefully planned settlements also show measurement skills.

Early Harappans built gabarbands, check dams across small streams, to enhance irrigation. At Dholavira, dams and canals diverted water from two nearby streams into interconnected deep tanks. These used stone and mud-bricks, with some cut deeper into bedrock.

Note: “Some radio-carbon dates suggest”, “probably”, and “could be seen as” express different levels of certainty. Evidence for early dates, the beginnings of writing and possible forerunners of seals must retain these qualifications.

How did Mesopotamian cities, writing and empires develop?

Rivers, temples and urban economies

Mesopotamia means “land in between”, referring to the land drained by the Euphrates and Tigris in West Asia. Farming began here 12000 years before present, and copper tools arrived around 4500 BCE, improving agriculture, crafts and trade.

The Fertile Crescent is the crescent-shaped foothill region of the Zagros and Taurus extending from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, named for its agricultural potential. Large cities developed governing systems and became city-states, sovereign states centred on cities ruling surrounding territories.

From 3500 BCE onwards, major city-based civilisations included the Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian. Sumerian cities included Ur in southern Mesopotamia. Sumerians built dams and irrigation canals and used mud bricks and burnt bricks for houses, defensive walls and other structures.

Each city built a ziggurat, a tower-like stepped temple, for its chief god. Cities grew around these temples. Agriculture, trade and transport were tied to temple authority. Sacred-temple entry was restricted to high priests and priestesses, who were probably part of the ruling class.

Writing and political change

Scribes, people who wrote records, pressed wedge-shaped reeds into damp clay tablets. They enjoyed high status. Cuneiform recorded myths, hymns, law codes, educational texts, farming and crafts. Different languages could use the same script, as Sumerian and Akkadian did.

Sumerians also invented wheeled carts and sailboats. They calculated for building and measuring fields. Their number system used 60, and their innovations included the 60-minute hour, 60-second minute and 360-degree circle.

The Code of Hammurabi compiled rules for civil and social conduct and became a foundational model for later legal systems. Repeated attacks, environmental degradation, pressure on farmland, and internal political and economic problems gradually weakened Babylonian control.

How did the Nile shape Egyptian government, beliefs and daily life?

Floodwater and cooperation

Egyptian city-states emerged around 3000 BCE as population increased and resources became available. The Nile watered its banks and flooded each summer. Annual inundations, or floods, deposited rich mud suitable for crops. Kemet, meaning “the black”, referred to the black river-valley soil.

About 5000 years ago, farmers learned to divert Nile water through ditches and store it in reservoirs. Digging ditches and building dams required collective effort. These cooperative efforts must have led to local government, with an administrative class probably forming its earliest version.

Counting days between floods helped develop a calendar. The Egyptian calendar had three seasons of four months each: inundation in autumn, Peret growing in winter, and shemu harvest in summer. It was based on the rising of Sirius, the Dog Star.

A year had 365 days: 12 months of 30 days, plus 5 extra days. This was quite accurate but lost time because the real year is about a quarter of a day longer. The numbers distinguish the calendar's arrangement from its limitation.

Rulers and beliefs about death

Pharaohs were Egypt's rulers. Their underground burials were covered by a rectangular structure called a mastaba. Placing mastabas one above another gradually produced pyramids, including the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.

Egyptians believed a person had a ka, or spiritual double, which lived after death if the body was preserved. Mummification was the preservation process: internal organs except the heart were removed, the body was dried with natron, then oiled and wrapped in linen.

Natron was the material used to dry the body during this process. The wrapped body was placed in a coffin and buried with rituals. Pyramids were built primarily because of beliefs connecting bodily preservation with life after death.

Leisure included swimming, canoeing, board games, music and dancing. Festivals honoured gods and pharaohs; the Sed festival marked a king's 30th year on the throne. Egyptian women, in general, enjoyed more rights than Greek or Roman women and could own property and run businesses.

How did Chinese civilisation develop along its river valleys?

Farming, metalworking and dynasties

Chinese civilisation flourished along the Huang He, or Yellow River, and the Yangtze. Their valleys were centres of Neolithic cultures around 7000 BCE. Around 2000 BCE, copper and bronze metallurgy brought many settlements, especially in the Yellow River basin, towards the Bronze Age.

Urban centres began emerging only around 1600 BCE, with expanded agricultural productivity, metallurgy and crafts. These developments led to the first Chinese Bronze Age territorial empire. A dynasty is a succession of rulers from the same family.

By 600 BCE, iron use was popular throughout China, and the Chinese Iron Age generally dates from this period onwards. The name “China” probably comes from Qin. The names of dynasties therefore identify political histories as well as broad technological periods.

Records, crafts and connections

Early Chinese oracles were symbols on animal bones and tortoise shells, often used to foretell the future. The bones were heated until they cracked, and the crack patterns were interpreted. They reveal people's hopes, desires and fears.

Chinese writing is logographic: characters represent whole words or morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of language, rather than sounds. Official historiographers, people who recorded events, also left abundant historical records.

Crafts included jade ritual or prestige objects, marble ornaments, and bronze weapons, tools and ritual vessels. Jade objects probably played an important role in social transactions. Silk was known from 4000 to 3000 BCE and became important during the Bronze Age.

Around the 2nd century BCE, under the Han dynasty, silk became a major external trade item, giving the Silk Route its name. Separate defensive walls were built from 680 BCE onwards and later joined; expansion and repair continued until the 17th century CE.

How did different social groups participate in early civilisations?

Mesopotamian rulers, priests and workers

Social hierarchy means an arrangement of social groups at different levels of status and power. In Mesopotamian cities, kings lived in grand palaces while people lived in small brick houses. Life mostly centred on farming, alongside metalworking, pottery and textiles.

Merchants and traders were present, and scribes enjoyed high status similar to priests and priestesses. Temple authority linked economic activity with religious institutions. The high priests and priestesses admitted to the sacred temple were probably part of the ruling class.

Egyptian social levels

The illustrated pyramid has four levels. Pharaoh is at the top; government officials, nobles and priests follow; free landholders, artisans and merchants form the next level; serfs and slaves occupy the base.

See Fig. 4.32 in your NCERT textbook

Artisans are skilled craft workers. Serfs were dependent agricultural workers, while slaves were people held as others' property. The pyramid separates these groups from free landholders and places them below officials, nobles and priests.

Chinese rulers and working groups

By 1500 BCE, Chinese Bronze Age society was highly stratified, or divided into social levels. The ruling class, nobles and aristocrats were at the top, followed by farmers and labourers. These divisions laid foundations for later Chinese social hierarchy.

Zhou rulers were both kings and priests, believed to be appointed by heaven, but could be dismissed if their people did not prosper. Public officials were carefully chosen after examinations in archery, horsemanship, calculations, writing and music.

What were the consequences of farming, trade and early civilisation?

From surplus to cities

A surplus is production beyond immediate needs. Producing surplus food and material goods laid the foundation for civilisation. Major Bronze Age civilisations developed independently in fertile river plains, where agricultural productivity and new resources supported economic growth and urban centres.

Civilisation here refers to societies characterised by urban centres, trade, writing, administration and social organisation. Early societies developed their social and administrative systems independently. Writing first enabled records of economic transactions and social activities and later supported literary and creative texts.

Exchange and the limits of evidence

Geographical proximity supported strong Mesopotamian and Harappan contacts. Tablets of the Akkadian king Sargon mention trade with Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha. Dilmun and Magan correspond to Bahrain and the Oman peninsula; Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation.

Trade with the Harappans included semi-precious stone beads, ivory, timber, gold dust and probably copper. There is little tangible evidence of direct Egyptian or Chinese contact with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation. This does not justify turning limited evidence into a definite claim of no contact.

Early civilisations shared farming, urban development, crafts, writing and administration while retaining regional differences. Rivers supplied opportunities, but organising water required cooperation. Babylonian decline also shows how environmental pressure and political and economic problems could weaken established powers.

Glossary

• Hominins — The group that includes modern humans and our early human-like ancestors.
• Biological evolution — Gradual physical and genetic changes through which early human ancestors developed into modern humans.
• Artefacts — Tools, implements and other material objects made by humans, used as evidence about their lives.
• Fossil — Preserved remains, traces or impressions of plants, animals or humans from the distant past.
• Palaeolithic — The Old Stone Age, associated with hunting-gathering and the use of stone tools.
• Microlithic tools — Tiny stone tools associated with the Mesolithic transition between hunting-gathering and agriculture.
• Domestication — Bringing selected plants and animals under human control and developing new breeds through cultivation and husbandry.
• Neolithic Revolution — The gradual transition towards food production, domestication and settled village life in different regions.
• Chalcolithic — The Copper and Stone Age, characterised by using copper alongside stone tools.
• City-state — A sovereign state centred on a city that rules the territories surrounding it.
• Ziggurat — A tower-like stepped temple with several floors and the main temple at the top.
• Cuneiform — A Sumerian writing system made by pressing wedge-shaped implements into the damp surfaces of clay tablets.
• Papyrus — Writing material made by crossing, pressing, drying and polishing strips from the papyrus plant.
• Mummification — Preserving a body through removing organs, drying, oiling and wrapping it before burial.
• Logographic script — Writing whose characters represent entire words or the smallest meaningful language units rather than sounds.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Human history begins with writing. Correct: More than 99 per cent of human history belongs to the period before writing; material remains are its major evidence.
• Misconception: All early scripts are readable today. Correct: Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic writing have been deciphered, but the Harappan script has not yet been deciphered.
• Misconception: The Neolithic Revolution was sudden everywhere. Correct: The transition to food production was gradual and took place at different times in different regions.
• Misconception: Every Indian community was agricultural by 2500 BCE. Correct: Most of the Indian subcontinent was occupied by Neolithic agricultural communities by that date.
• Misconception: Mesopotamian cities had no links with Harappans. Correct: Sargon's tablets mention eastern trade, and Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation.
• Misconception: Copper is a certain item in the listed Harappan trade with Mesopotamia. Correct: Harappan trade with Mesopotamia included semi-precious stone beads, ivory, timber, gold dust and probably copper.
• Misconception: Egyptian women had identical rights to all other ancient women. Correct: In general, they enjoyed more rights than Greek or Roman women and could own property and run businesses.
• Misconception: Little evidence of direct contact proves that no contact occurred. Correct: There is little tangible evidence of direct Egyptian or Chinese contact with the Harappans; this remains a limitation of evidence.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Evidence: before writing, tools and other material objects are major sources and dating is approximate; after writing, documents provide event dates alongside material evidence, making dating relatively accurate. State two changes writing brought to historical reconstruction. [2 marks]

1. Written documents added another type of evidence to the material remains already available for reconstructing people's lives.
2. Dates recorded in documents made the dating of events relatively accurate compared with approximate dating before writing.

Q2. Evidence: around 12000 years ago, warmer conditions expanded forests and grasslands into formerly icy areas; small animals, fish and wild grains became available; microlithic tools supported aquatic food collection and fishing became the mainstay. Explain three connected changes in Mesolithic subsistence. [3 marks]

1. Warmer conditions changed the environment by allowing forests and grasslands to expand into regions previously covered by ice sheets, increasing the available habitats.
2. The new landscapes provided a wider variety of food resources, including small game animals, fish and edible wild grains.
3. Tiny stone tools helped people gather food from marine and freshwater environments, while fishing became the mainstay of their subsistence economy.

Q3. Evidence: the Neolithic transition was gradual; selected plants and animals came under human control; tools served food production and processing; pottery developed in varied shapes and sizes; the first villages laid foundations for urban life. Explain these five features of the Neolithic Revolution. [5 marks]

1. The transition changed how people obtained food: hunting and gathering gradually gave way to a food-producing way of life. “Revolution” therefore describes a major transformation rather than an instant event.
2. Domestication brought selected plants and animals under human control. Cultivation and animal husbandry became central features of the new food-producing way of life.
3. Tools were made for producing and processing food. Their role reflected the shift from procuring available foods to cultivating and preparing what people produced.
4. People developed earthenware pottery in different shapes and sizes. Pottery formed part of the wider changes accompanying the new way of life.
5. The first village settlements established a more settled pattern of living. These settlements laid the foundations for the later development of urban life.

Q4. Evidence: Sargon's tablets mention Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha; Dilmun and Magan correspond to Bahrain and the Oman peninsula of the Persian Gulf; Meluhha is generally identified with the Harappans; traded goods included semi-precious stone beads, ivory, timber, gold dust and probably copper. Give four conclusions while retaining uncertainty. [4 marks]

1. Sargon's tablets provide written evidence of Mesopotamian trade with three named eastern territories: Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha.
2. Dilmun corresponds to today's Bahrain, while Magan corresponds to the Oman peninsula in the Persian Gulf region.
3. Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation, so this identification should retain the qualification “generally”.
4. Harappan trade included semi-precious stone beads, ivory, timber and gold dust; copper must remain a probable item rather than a certain one.

Q5. Evidence: annual Nile floods left fertile mud excellent for crops; farmers diverted water through ditches and stored it in reservoirs; dam and ditch construction required collective effort; these efforts must have led to local government, accompanied by an administrative class probably making up its earliest form. Explain four links between the river and Egyptian society. [4 marks]

1. Annual Nile inundations deposited rich mud along the river's banks, providing fertile soil that was excellent for growing crops.
2. Ditches diverted river water into fields, while reservoirs stored water for later use, extending the usefulness of the river's water.
3. Digging ditches and constructing dams required people to work collectively, making cooperation important in managing the water supply.
4. These efforts must have led to local government, accompanied by an administrative class probably making up its earliest form; this final explanation remains qualified.

Q6. Evidence: Neolithic cultures in the Huang He and Yangtze river valleys date to around 7000 BCE; copper/bronze arrived around 2000 BCE; towns emerged only around 1600 BCE with greater farm productivity and crafts; iron was popular by 600 BCE, from when the Chinese Iron Age generally dates; silk became a major external trade item around the 2nd century BCE under the Han, giving the Silk Route its name. Explain five developments in order. [5 marks]

1. Around 7000 BCE, the Huang He and Yangtze valleys were centres of Neolithic cultures, establishing an early river-valley setting for later Chinese civilisation.
2. Around 2000 BCE, copper and bronze metallurgy brought many Neolithic settlements towards the Bronze Age. This stage preceded the later emergence of urban centres.
3. Only around 1600 BCE did urban centres begin to emerge, supported by expanding agricultural productivity and advances in metallurgy and craft production.
4. By 600 BCE, iron use had become popular throughout China. The Chinese Iron Age generally dates from this period onwards, retaining the qualification “generally”.
5. Around the 2nd century BCE, under the Han dynasty, silk became a major item of external trade, giving the route carrying it the name Silk Route.

Q7. Evidence: Babylonian prominence declined by the end of 1400 BCE amid repeated attacks by rivals with advantages in technology and efficient resource use, environmental degradation, pressure on farmland, and internal political and economic problems. Identify three groups of causes. [3 marks]

1. External attacks weakened Babylonian power. Rival powers gained an advantage by mastering new technologies and adopting more efficient ways of using natural resources.
2. Environmental degradation and pressure on agricultural land placed additional strain on the resources that supported Babylonian society and its control.
3. Internal political and economic problems also gradually weakened control. Together with external and environmental pressures, they prevented the Babylonians from maintaining their earlier dominance.

Key takeaways

• Early human history is reconstructed mainly through material remains, including tools, fossils and cave art, because it largely predates writing.
• Human ancestors evolved in Africa, and successive movements carried early humans into other parts of the world.
• Palaeolithic tools helped people obtain food, while symbolic communication included cave paintings, body pigments, beads and engravings.
• Warmer Mesolithic environments offered more varied resources, and microlithic tools supported aquatic food collection and fishing.
• The Neolithic Revolution gradually connected domestication, food production, pottery and village settlements, with different regional timings.
• Harappan urban development grew from earlier farming, craft traditions, copper working, water management and economic integration.
• Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and the Harappan civilisation developed independently in fertile river settings and shared several urban features.
• Trade and writing connected economic activity with administration, while evidence and its qualifications shape what can be concluded.

Test yourself

What does the term extra-corporal limbs mean when applied to tools?

Tools are sometimes described as extensions of the human body because they help people perform tasks their hands alone cannot accomplish.

What is the difference between an artefact and a fossil?

An artefact is an object made by humans. A fossil is a preserved remain, trace or impression of a plant, animal or human from the distant past.

Why should the Neolithic Revolution not be assigned one worldwide starting date?

The transition to farming was gradual and occurred at different times in different regions, including regional variation within the Indian subcontinent.

What makes Mehrgarh important in early Indian agricultural history?

Mehrgarh was the subcontinent's oldest Neolithic site and earliest agricultural village, dating to about 7000 BCE, with crop cultivation, animal raising and sun-dried brick buildings.

How could Sumerian and Akkadian use the same writing system?

They were different languages written in the same cuneiform script, showing that different languages could share a single writing system.

What qualification belongs with the identification of Meluhha?

Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation; retaining “generally” preserves the strength of the identification.

What did Egyptians believe about the ka and the preserved body?

They believed that the ka, a person's spiritual double, lived after death if the body was preserved through mummification.

What is distinctive about logographic Chinese writing?

Its characters represent entire words or morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of language, rather than representing sounds.