Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation Class 9: Notes and Questions

What Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation is about

Weightage: CBSE has not yet published marks for Class 9 Social Science 2026-27: its syllabus says the course structure "will be provided shortly". Class 9 is a school examination (80 marks annual paper + 20 internal assessment), so your school sets the paper.Source: CBSE Social Science syllabus, Class IX 2026-27

Key concepts

Before and after writing

NCERT section The Invention of Writing: Before and After

Human history splits into two unequal parts:

	Before writing	After writing
Share of human history	more than 99 per cent (about 3 million to 5,000 years ago)	less than 1 per cent (the last 5,000 years)
Main source	artefacts: tools, implements, objects	material remains and written documents
What we learn	hard to know people's thoughts	names, events, social, political and cultural life
Dating	only approximate	more accurate (texts mention coronations, wars)

Scripts: the Harappan script (Sindhu lipi), a pictographic script on seals and pottery, is not yet deciphered. The cuneiform of the Sumerians and the hieroglyphs of Egypt flourished at about the same time and have been deciphered; they mark the start of the historical period about 5,000 years ago. In India, Brahmi was in use from about 400 BCE and was later formalised by Emperor Aśhoka (3rd century BCE).

Worked example

Why is dating of prehistoric events only approximate, while dating in the historical period is more accurate? (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Prehistory: no written records; dates come from artefacts.
2. Historical period: written documents mention specific dates of events.

Answer: Before writing, historians depend on tools and other artefacts, which cannot give exact dates, so dating is only approximate. After writing, documents record specific events such as coronations and wars, so dates become far more accurate.

Human ancestors and migration out of Africa

NCERT section Who Were Our Human Ancestors?

Early human history studies biological evolution (physical and genetic change from the australopithecines to modern Homo sapiens) and cultural evolution (how people adapted during the Quaternary Period, the last 26 lakh years, by making tools and technology).

Key points:

• Our earliest ancestors evolved in Africa. About 3.3 million years ago one ancestor made the earliest stone tools, the start of 'human behaviour'. Tools are called extra-corporal limbs: extensions of the body.
• Hominins = modern humans and our human-like ancestors (tool makers).
• Homo habilis ('handy man') lived in Africa, especially the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania and Kenya); made chopper tools.
• Homo erectus (upright, bipedal) made handaxes and cleavers and was the first hominin to leave Africa, about 2 million years ago.
• Homo neanderthalensis lived in Europe and Southwest Asia till about 40,000 years ago.
• Homo sapiens evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago; a second major wave left Africa about 125,000 years ago and spread across the world, including Australia and the Americas between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago.

How we know: archaeologists excavate sites for tools, bones and fossils (remains turned to stone over long periods), and even make and use copies of tools to learn how they worked.

Worked example

Why are stone tools called 'extra-corporal limbs'? Why is the making of tools seen as the start of human behaviour? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Tools extend what the body can do: they act like extra limbs outside the body.
2. Making tools needs planning and cognitive ability that animals lack.
3. So toolmaking (from about 3.3 million years ago) marks human behaviour.

Answer: Tools worked as extensions of the human body, letting people cut, dig or scrape in ways their hands alone could not, so they are called extra-corporal limbs. Making them needed thinking ability that animals do not have; that is why the first stone tools, about 3.3 million years ago, are seen as the beginning of human behaviour, and humans came to be called hominins or tool makers.

Periods of early human history

NCERT section Periods in Early Human History

Early history is divided by technology (tools, farming, metals) and lifestyle:

• Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age): hunting-gathering; simple stone tools.
• Mesolithic: microliths (tiny stone tools); a bridge between hunting-gathering and farming.
• Neolithic (New Stone Age): farming, settled life, domestic animals, polished stone tools.
• Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone Age): copper used along with stone; early metallurgy.
• Bronze Age: bronze made by mixing copper and tin; trade, towns, early civilisations.
• Iron Age: iron smelting; stronger tools and weapons.

The shift to farming is called the Neolithic Revolution because it changed how people got food, where they lived and how society was organised, laying the base for villages and later cities.

Worked example

Why do historians divide early history into Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages? What does this tell us about human progress? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. The division is based on the main material and technology used for tools.
2. Each stage brought new ways of life: hunting, farming, towns, empires.
3. It shows progress as growing control over nature and resources.

Answer: The ages are named after the main material people used for tools: stone, then copper and bronze, then iron. Each new technology changed ways of life: from hunting-gathering to farming, then to towns, trade and stronger societies. The classification shows human progress as a steady growth in skill and control over natural resources.

Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in India

NCERT section Palaeolithic Hunter–Gatherers

Palaeolithic ('palaeo' = old, 'lithic' = stone):

• Oldest settlements in the subcontinent go back about 2 million years. Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu) is dated about 1.5-1.7 million years ago; Isampur (Karnataka) about 1.2 million years ago.
• Tools: handaxes, cleavers, scrapers, choppers of quartzite and limestone, used to chop meat, dig tubers, scrape skins and crack bones for marrow.
• Later: smaller scrapers, borers and points (tips for projectiles), then the bow and arrow, blades and microblades, burins (engravers) for carving bone and ostrich-egg shell.
• With Homo sapiens came symbolic communication, cave and rock-shelter paintings, body pigments and the first beads of stone, bone and shell.

Mesolithic (from about 12,000 years ago):

• The climate grew warmer; forests and grasslands spread where ice had been, giving more small game, fish and wild grains.
• The world saw its first population explosion.
• Microlithic tools helped catch aquatic food; fishing became the mainstay.
• Art flourished; Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh), a World Heritage Site, has hundreds of painted rock shelters.

Worked example

What changes in climate around 12,000 years ago shaped Mesolithic life? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Climate warmed; ice sheets gave way to forests and grasslands.
2. More resources: small game, fish, wild grains.
3. Effects: population explosion, microliths for fishing, more art, caves and rock shelters occupied.

Answer: About 12,000 years ago the Earth became warmer, and forests and grasslands spread into areas once under ice. This gave people more small animals, fish and edible wild grains, leading to the first population explosion. People made microlithic tools to catch fish and other aquatic food, art flourished and caves and rock shelters such as Bhimbetka were often occupied.

The Neolithic Revolution and Mehrgarh

NCERT section The Neolithic Revolution

As hunter-gatherers learnt the seasons and food sources, they shifted to producing food: the Neolithic revolution. Its hallmark was domestication of selected plants and animals and the breeding of new varieties.

• Hunter-gatherers made tools to procure food; Neolithic farmers made tools to produce and process food.
• They made pottery of many shapes and set up the first villages, the foundation of the later urban revolution.
• The change came at different times in different places (rice in the Ganga plains, wheat and barley in West Asia, millets in India and North China, pearl millet in West Africa).

Mehrgarh (on the Bolan River, present-day Pakistan) is the oldest Neolithic site and earliest farming village in the subcontinent, about 7000 BCE:

• handmade sun-dried brick houses and granaries; graves for the dead;
• ornaments of lapis lazuli, carnelian and shell;
• wheat and barley; sheep, goats and zebu (humped) cattle;
• first copper objects: Chalcolithic by about 4000 BCE, paving the way to the Bronze Age Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation.

By 2500 BCE most of the subcontinent had Neolithic farming communities (e.g. Sanganakallu, on a granite hill, about 2000 BCE).

Worked example

Give four features of life at Mehrgarh that show it was a settled farming village. (4 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Houses of sun-dried brick.
2. Granaries for storing grain.
3. Crops: wheat and barley; animals: sheep, goats, zebu cattle.
4. Graves and ornaments show a settled community with crafts.

Answer: 1. People built handmade sun-dried brick houses. 2. They stored grain in granaries. 3. They grew wheat and barley and reared sheep, goats and humped zebu cattle. 4. They buried their dead in graves and made ornaments of lapis lazuli, carnelian and shell. These show permanent settlement based on farming.

Early Harappan stage of the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation

NCERT section Sindhu–Sarasvatī Civilisation

From Mehrgarh, Neolithic life spread through the Indus valley and east. Around 4000 BCE some settlements learnt to extract copper (earliest Chalcolithic sites). Copper tools in the fertile plains of the Indus and Ghaggar-Sarasvatī raised productivity and prosperity.

The Early Harappan stage shows continuity with the later civilisation (mature by about 2600 BCE):

• regional pottery styles, semi-precious stone beads, shell bangles, terracotta, copper work;
• perimeter walls, seals and possibly the beginnings of the script;
• bead making at Harappa, Kunal (Haryana) and Datrana (Gujarat); graffiti and simple seals at Harappa, Rehman Dheri and Kunal;
• radiocarbon dates suggest the Pre-Harappan phase at Bhirrana and Kunal began between 7000 and 5500 BCE.

Other achievements in the chapter:

• Kalibangan: a ploughed field with criss-cross furrows, suggesting two crops a year (like today's rabi and kharif).
• Standard weights: a binary system (1, 2, 4, 8, 16...) for small units and multiples of ten for large ones.
• Water management: gabarbands (check dams) in Baluchistan; tanks at Dholavira; the Lothal dockyard of burnt bricks.

Timeline (book): Neolithic 7000 BCE, Chalcolithic 4500 BCE, Bronze Age 3300 BCE; Mature Harappan 2600-1900 BCE; Late Harappan 1900-1300 BCE.

Worked example

Why did the Harappans need a standard system of weights? Describe the system. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Planned cities and long-distance trade need common measures.
2. System: binary multiples (1, 2, 4, 8, 16) for small units; multiples of ten for large.
3. Cubical stone weights found at many sites.

Answer: Their planned settlements and inter-regional trade needed everyone to measure goods the same way; without common weights, long-distance trade would have led to disputes and losses. They used cubical stone weights following binary multiples (1, 2, 4, 8, 16...) for smaller units and multiples of ten for larger ones.

Mesopotamian civilisation

NCERT section Mesopotamian Civilisation

Mesopotamia (Greek: 'land in between') is the land of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, mainly today's Iraq and Kuwait with parts of Turkey and south-west Iran. The Fertile Crescent is the crescent of Zagros and Taurus foothills from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Farming began here about 12,000 years ago; copper arrived about 4500 BCE. The earliest city-based civilisation arose here, with four city-based civilisations from 3500 BCE:

• Sumerians (Ur, southern Iraq): first dams and canals for irrigation; first mud and burnt bricks; city built round a ziggurat (stepped temple, also a treasury); temple controlled economy; priests at the top; invented the wheeled cart and sailboat; a number system based on 60 (60-minute hour, 360-degree circle). Writing began about 3200 BCE: cuneiform (Latin cuneus = wedge), pressed into clay tablets; scribes had high status.
• Akkadians (from 2334 BCE): same cuneiform script; the world's first dynastic empire; King Sargon's tablets mention trade with Dilmun (Bahrain), Magan (Oman) and Meluhha (the Harappan civilisation): beads, ivory, timber, gold dust and probably copper. The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the earliest written stories.
• Assyrians (from about 2154 BCE, city of Assur, north): dominant till early 1700 BCE.
• Babylonians (from 1900 BCE): Hammurabi (from 1792 BCE) built an empire and compiled the Code of Hammurabi, a model for later legal systems. Decline by about 1400 BCE due to Hittite attacks, environmental degradation and internal problems.

Worked example

What evidence shows trade between Mesopotamia and the Harappan civilisation? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Akkadian king Sargon's cuneiform tablets mention Meluhha.
2. Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation.
3. Goods: semi-precious stone beads, ivory, timber, gold dust, probably copper; geographical closeness helped.

Answer: Cuneiform tablets of the Akkadian king Sargon record trade with Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha; Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation. Goods exchanged included semi-precious stone beads, ivory, timber, gold dust and probably copper. The two regions were geographically close, which made strong contact possible.

Egyptian civilisation

NCERT section Egyptian Civilisation

Egypt grew along the Nile. Each summer the river flooded, leaving rich black mud; Egyptians called their land Kemet ('the black'). City-states emerged about 3000 BCE.

• About 5,000 years ago farmers dug ditches to divert Nile water and stored it in reservoirs. This collective work probably led to local government and an administrative class. Counting days between floods produced a calendar: three seasons of four months; 365 days (12 × 30 + 5).
• Pharaohs ruled. They were buried under a mastaba; stacked mastabas became pyramids (the Step Pyramid at Saqqara). Pyramids and mummification came from the belief in the ka, a spiritual double that lives on if the body is preserved.
• Social hierarchy: Pharaoh; officials, nobles and priests; free landholders, artisans and merchants; serfs and slaves.
• Sources: papyrus records (e.g. Papyrus Ebers with over 700 cures and spells), Greek writer Herodotus (5th century BCE). Hieroglyphs were deciphered by Champollion in 1822 using the Rosetta Stone (found in 1799), which also had Greek.
• Daily life: swimming, board games, music, festivals (e.g. the Sed festival for a king's 30th year). Women could own property and run businesses; Cleopatra became queen at eighteen.

Worked example

Why did the Egyptians build pyramids and mummify their dead? (2 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Belief: each person had a ka, a spiritual double.
2. The ka lived on only if the body was preserved.

Answer: In Egyptian belief, everyone had a ka, a spiritual double, which could survive death only as long as the body stayed preserved. So they mummified bodies and built great tombs, first mastabas and then pyramids, to protect the pharaoh's body.

Chinese civilisation and common features

NCERT section The Chinese Civilisation

China's civilisation grew along the Huang He (Yellow River) and Yangtze, centres of Neolithic cultures from about 7000 BCE. Copper and bronze came about 2000 BCE; urban centres about 1600 BCE.

• Dynasties: Shang (1600-1046 BCE), Zhou (1046-256 BCE); iron spread by 600 BCE; Qin (221-206 BCE) unified China and probably gave it its name; Han (206 BCE-220 CE).
• Zhou rulers were king-priests, 'appointees of heaven', who could be removed if people did not prosper; officials were examined in archery, riding, calculation, writing and music.
• Earliest sources: oracle bones: symbols on animal bones and tortoise shells, heated till they cracked, used to foretell the future.
• Script is logographic: characters stand for words, not sounds.
• Crafts: jade (brought from outside China), marble carving, bronze ritual vessels; musical jade pieces.
• Great Wall: walls from 680 BCE against nomad raids, later joined; repaired till the 17th century CE.
• Silk known from the Neolithic; under the Han (2nd century BCE) it became a major export, giving the Silk Route its name.
• First paper currency and first civil services by public examination.

Common features: all four early civilisations (Harappan, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese) arose independently in fertile river plains: surplus farming → cities → administration → writing to record transactions and later literature.

Worked example

'Bronze Age civilisations developed independently but shared common features.' Give three common features. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. River plains: Sindhu-Sarasvatī, Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, Huang He.
2. Agricultural surplus led to cities.
3. Writing and administrative systems developed.

Answer: 1. All grew in fertile river plains: the Sindhu and Sarasvatī, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile and the Huang He. 2. Higher farm output and new resources led to urban cities. 3. Each developed social and administrative systems and a writing system to record transactions and, later, literature.

Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation in real life

Each concept, met in an everyday situation. Read the situation, answer the question in your own words, then compare with the model answer. The one-line hook is what to remember.

Topics in this chapter

• Harappan, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Chinese Civilisations
• Human Ancestors, the Stone Age and the Neolithic Revolution

Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation: key facts

Periods in order

1. 1.Palaeolithic
2. 2.Mesolithic
3. 3.Neolithic
4. 4.Chalcolithic
5. 5.Bronze Age
6. 6.Iron Age

Stone Age = first three.

Ancestors

1. 1.Homo habilis (Olduvai; choppers)
2. 2.Homo erectus (handaxes, cleavers; first out of Africa ~2 mya)
3. 3.Neanderthals (Europe, SW Asia, till ~40,000 yrs ago)
4. 4.Homo sapiens (Africa ~300,000 yrs ago)

Earliest stone tools ~3.3 mya.

Indian sites

Attirampakkam	TN, 1.5-1.7 mya
Isampur	Karnataka, 1.2 mya
Bhimbetka	MP, rock art
Mehrgarh	Bolan, ~7000 BCE
Sanganakallu	~2000 BCE

Link each to its period.

Harappan timeline

1. 1.Early Harappan
2. 2.Mature 2600-1900 BCE
3. 3.Late 1900-1300 BCE

Copper ~4000 BCE; Kalibangan double cropping.

Mesopotamia sequence

1. 1.Sumerian (Ur, cuneiform ~3200 BCE)
2. 2.Akkadian 2334 BCE (Sargon, first dynastic empire)
3. 3.Assyrian ~2154 BCE (Assur)
4. 4.Babylonian 1900 BCE (Hammurabi 1792 BCE)

Meluhha = Harappans; Dilmun = Bahrain; Magan = Oman.

Rivers of civilisations

Harappan	Sindhu-Sarasvatī
Mesopotamia	Tigris-Euphrates
Egypt	Nile
China	Huang He (and Yangtze)

All independent, all in river plains.

Scripts

Harappan	pictographic, undeciphered
Cuneiform	wedge marks on clay, deciphered
Hieroglyphs	deciphered 1822 via Rosetta Stone
Chinese	logographic
Brahmi	from ~400 BCE

Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation: map work

The places on the official CBSE map list for this chapter. Find each one on an outline map of India and practise marking it.

How the school exam asks Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

The question patterns to expect, and the method that works for each.

Tricks to remember Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

Short memory aids. Say each one aloud once, then use it on a question the same day.

• Periods

  'Please Make New Copper Bronze Items': Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze, Iron.

  Use it when: Ordering the ages.

• Mesopotamia order

  'Some Ants Always Bite': Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian.

  Use it when: Sequence of Mesopotamian civilisations.

• Trade partners

  Dilmun = Dubai's neighbour Bahrain; Magan = Muscat's Oman; Meluhha = Mohenjo-daro's land.

  Use it when: Sargon's trade list.

• Rivers of four civilisations

  'SINT': Sindhu, Iraq's two rivers (Tigris-Euphrates), Nile, The Yellow River (Huang He).

  Use it when: River-valley questions.

• Sumerian 60

  Every clock is Sumerian: 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 360 degrees.

  Use it when: Sumerian contributions.

Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation: exam-level solved questions

Ordered from exam level to HOTS. Cover the solution, write your own, then compare step by step.

Case-study practice (Section E style)

Read the situation, then answer every part. In a school exam set on the board pattern this is a 4-mark question split into 1 + 1 + 2 marks.

Where the marks are

How a typical answer is split into step marks. Show every step: a right final answer alone rarely earns full marks.

Where students lose marks in Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

The slips examiners see most often, and what to write instead.

• ✗Mistake: Saying the Harappan script has been read

  Students confuse it with cuneiform or hieroglyphs.

  Wrong working

  Historians read Harappan seals to know their kings.

  Right working

  The Harappan script is not yet deciphered; cuneiform and hieroglyphs have been.

  ✓Do this: Harappan = undeciphered.

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Calling Homo sapiens the first to leave Africa

  Only the famous species is remembered.

  Wrong working

  Homo sapiens were the first humans to migrate out of Africa.

  Right working

  Homo erectus was the first hominin to leave Africa (about 2 million years ago); Homo sapiens left in a later wave (about 125,000 years ago).

  ✓Do this: Erectus first, sapiens later.

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Mixing up Mesolithic and Neolithic tools

  Both are 'stone' ages.

  Wrong working

  Neolithic people used microliths mainly for fishing.

  Right working

  Mesolithic: microliths, fishing; Neolithic: polished tools for food production, farming.

  ✓Do this: Micro = Meso; polish = Neo.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks in a table question.

• ✗Mistake: Writing that the Akkadians invented a new script

  New language assumed to mean new script.

  Wrong working

  The Akkadians wrote in their own new script.

  Right working

  Akkadians spoke a different language but used the same cuneiform script as the Sumerians.

  ✓Do this: New language, same script.

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Vague 'rivers gave water' answers

  Only one advantage given.

  Wrong working

  Civilisations grew near rivers because of water.

  Right working

  Rivers gave water for irrigation, fertile silt after floods (Kemet in Egypt), transport and trade; but also floods to manage (ditches, dams).

  ✓Do this: Give at least three advantages and one challenge.

  Usually costs: 2 marks of a 5-mark answer.

NCERT exercise guide: Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

What each exercise in the NCERT chapter tests, how to approach it, and a question of the same kind solved step by step. Questions here are written in our own words.

Practice questions on Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

Write each answer on paper first. Open the hint only if you are stuck, and the answer only when you have finished.

1. Q1 · 1 mark · MCQExam level

   Which hominin is called 'handy man'?
   (a) Homo erectus (b) Homo habilis (c) Homo sapiens (d) Neanderthal

   Hint

   Habilis = able, handy.

   Answer

   (b) Homo habilis

2. Q2 · 1 mark · Very short answerExam level

   Name the period in which bronze was made by mixing copper and tin.

   Hint

   Named after the alloy.

   Answer

   The Bronze Age.

3. Q3 · 1 mark · Very short answerExam level

   Where was the Lothal dockyard and what was it built of?

   Hint

   A Harappan site in Gujarat.

   Answer

   Lothal (Gujarat); built entirely of burnt bricks.

4. Q4 · 1 mark · Assertion-reasonHarder exam level

   Assertion (A): The Mesolithic period saw the first population explosion.
   Reason (R): A warmer climate made more food such as small game, fish and wild grains available.
   Choose (a)-(d).

   Hint

   Cause and effect.

   Answer

   (a) Both true and R explains A.

5. Q5 · 2 marks · Short answerHarder exam level

   What does the ploughed field at Kalibangan suggest about Early Harappan farming? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Two sets of furrows.

   Answer

   Furrows in two directions suggest two crops grown in the same field, similar to today's rabi and kharif seasons; it shows advanced, planned farming nearly 5,000 years ago.

6. Q6 · 3 marks · Short answerHarder exam level

   Explain the role of temples in Sumerian city life. (3 marks)

   Hint

   Ziggurat, economy, hierarchy.

   Answer

   Each city built a ziggurat for its chief god and grew around it. The ziggurat was also the treasury, with palaces and royal stores nearby. Farming, trade and transport were tied to temple authority, and only high priests and priestesses, probably the ruling class, could enter the sacred temple, showing social hierarchy.

7. Q7 · 2 marks · Short answerHarder exam level

   How did the Rosetta Stone help decipher Egyptian writing? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Three scripts, one known.

   Answer

   It carried the same text in three types of writing, including Greek. Since Greek could still be read, it acted like a bilingual dictionary; Champollion used it to decipher the script in 1822.

8. Q8 · 2 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   Why did early Chinese rulers' power depend on the welfare of their people? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Zhou kings and heaven.

   Answer

   Zhou rulers were believed to be appointees of heaven, but they could be dismissed if their people did not prosper; so their authority depended on good rule.

9. Q9 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   Suppose you could take only one innovation from early civilisations into the future. Choose writing, the wheel or standard weights and justify your choice with two reasons from the chapter. (3 marks)

   Hint

   Link to what the chapter says each made possible.

   Answer

   Writing (for example): it let societies record transactions, laws (Code of Hammurabi) and literature (Epic of Gilgamesh), and it gives historians accurate dates and names. (Any choice is acceptable if two reasons are grounded in the chapter.)

10. Q10 · 5 marks · Long answerHarder exam level

    Prepare a comparison of Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods on tools, settlement, art and food. (5 marks)

    Hint

    NCERT question 6.

    Answer

    Palaeolithic: tools: handaxes, cleavers, scrapers, later blades and burins; settlement: open sites, caves; art: later cave paintings, beads; food: hunting animals, gathering, marrow. Mesolithic: tools: microliths; settlement: caves and rock shelters such as Bhimbetka; art: flourished; food: fishing mainstay, small game, wild grains. Neolithic: tools: polished stone tools for farming and processing; settlement: permanent villages with houses and granaries (Mehrgarh); art/craft: pottery, ornaments; food: farming and herding.

11. Q11 · 2 marks · Short answerExam level

    How did the Great Wall of China come to be? (2 marks)

    Hint

    Separate walls joined.

    Answer

    Separate walls were built from 680 BCE by the Zhou and other dynasties against raids by nomadic tribes; they were later joined into one defence line, and the wall was extended and repaired till the 17th century CE.

12. Q12 · 2 marks · Short answerExam level

    'The Silk Route got its name from China.' Explain. (2 marks)

    Hint

    Han dynasty.

    Answer

    Silk was known in China from Neolithic times; under the Han dynasty (around the 2nd century BCE) it became a major export, so the whole route along which it was traded came to be called the Silk Route.

Test your recall

Answer in your head or on paper first, then open the card. Pulling an answer out of memory makes it stick far better than re-reading.

1. 1.What share of human history falls before writing?Show answer

   More than 99 per cent.

2. 2.Which hominin first left Africa?Show answer

   Homo erectus, about 2 million years ago.

3. 3.When did Homo sapiens evolve, and where?Show answer

   About 300,000 years ago, in Africa.

4. 4.Name the oldest Neolithic site in the subcontinent.Show answer

   Mehrgarh, on the Bolan River (about 7000 BCE).

5. 5.Which site in Madhya Pradesh has hundreds of painted rock shelters?Show answer

   Bhimbetka (a World Heritage Site).

6. 6.What does Mesopotamia mean?Show answer

   'Land in between' (the Euphrates and Tigris).

7. 7.What is a ziggurat?Show answer

   A stepped, tower-like temple with the main temple on top; it was also the city's treasury.

8. 8.Who compiled a famous law code in Babylon?Show answer

   Hammurabi (from 1792 BCE).

9. 9.What helped decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs?Show answer

   The Rosetta Stone, which had Greek too; Champollion deciphered the script in 1822.

10. 10.What were oracle bones?Show answer

    Animal bones and tortoise shells with symbols, heated till they cracked to foretell the future in early China.

11. 11.What are gabarbands?Show answer

    Check dams built by Early Harappans in Baluchistan across small streams for irrigation.

Quick revision checklist

The night before the exam: can you do each of these without looking?

• ☐Before writing: >99% of history; artefacts; approximate dating. After writing: <1%; documents; accurate dates.
• ☐Harappan script: pictographic, undeciphered; cuneiform and hieroglyphs deciphered; Brahmi from ~400 BCE, formalised by Aśhoka.
• ☐Earliest stone tools ~3.3 mya; tools = extra-corporal limbs; hominins = tool makers.
• ☐Homo habilis (Olduvai) → Homo erectus (first out of Africa ~2 mya) → Homo sapiens (Africa ~300,000 yrs ago; left ~125,000 yrs ago).
• ☐Attirampakkam 1.5-1.7 mya; Isampur 1.2 mya; handaxes, cleavers, scrapers, choppers.
• ☐Later Palaeolithic: bow and arrow, blades, burins, cave art, beads.
• ☐Mesolithic (~12,000 yrs ago): warmer climate, population explosion, microliths, fishing, Bhimbetka.
• ☐Neolithic revolution: domestication, food production, pottery, villages.
• ☐Mehrgarh ~7000 BCE: mud-brick houses, granaries, wheat, barley, zebu; copper by ~4000 BCE.
• ☐Early Harappan: continuity in pottery, beads, seals; Kalibangan double cropping; standard weights; Dholavira tanks; Lothal dockyard.
• ☐Mesopotamia: Sumerians (ziggurat, canals, cuneiform ~3200 BCE, base 60) → Akkadians (Sargon, Meluhha trade) → Assyrians → Babylonians (Hammurabi's code).
• ☐Egypt: Nile floods, Kemet, calendar 365 days, pharaohs, mastaba → pyramid, ka and mummification, Rosetta Stone.
• ☐China: Huang He and Yangtze; Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han; oracle bones; logographic script; jade; Great Wall; Silk Route; paper currency.
• ☐All four civilisations: independent, river plains, surplus, cities, writing, administration.

Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation: frequently asked questions