Tag: pre-historic india

Neanderthals (or Neanderthals) are our closest extinct human relatives. They emerged at least 200,000 years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch. They lived during the Ice Age and to protect themselves from cold they started wearing leather clothing and took shelter in limestone caves.

The period before the discovery of the art of writing is called the Prehistoric age. This is so because we do not find evidence of the linguistic development or the use of script. In this age, man was a nomad and indulged in hunting and food-gathering. The relics of the hunting and food-gathering humans are available in Bimbetka, Hunasagi and Kurnool in India. There are many other sites in which such relics have been found. Most of these sites have been discovered along the banks of rivers and lakes. Bhimbetka is a rick shelter site.

The period before the discovery of the art of writing is called the Prehistoric age. This is so because we do not find evidence of the linguistic development or the use of scripts. In this age, man was a nomad and indulged in hunting and food-gathering. Archaeologists have discovered few tools created and used by these people. Probably they used tools made of stone, wood and bones. Among these, only tools made of stone have survived today, providing us the sources for study. 

The Harappan Civilization is classified as a Bronze Age civilization, which falls under the broader Chalcolithic period, characterized by the use of both stone and copper tools.

The Chalcolithic age was a transition period from the Stone Age (Neolithic) to Metal Age. The first metal to be used was copper. The transition is thought to have taken place gradually in the late 7th millennium BCE. The largest site of the Chalcolithic period is Diamabad situated on the left bank of the Pravara River.

Daojali Hading is a site on the hills near the Brahmaputra Valley, close to routes leading into China and Myanmar. Here stone tools, including mortars and pestles, have been found. These indicate that people were probably growing grain and preparing food from it. Other finds include jadeite, a stone that may have been brought from China. 

Mehrgarh is a Neolithic site on the Kacchi Plain.

The burial site of Mehrgarh shown that the dead people were buried with Goats.

The Harappan people cultivated a variety of crops, including wheat, barley, rice, and various millets, which supported their urban population.

Copper was the first metal discovered and utilized by humans, marking the transition from the Neolithic period to the Chalcolithic period.

Hallur is an archaeological site located in the Haveri District, in the Indian state of Karnataka

Hallur, South india's earliest Iron Age site lies in a semi-arid region with scrub vegetation, located on the banks of the river Tungabhadra the site is a low mound about 6.4 m high.

The site was first discovered by Nagaraja Rao in 1962, and excavated in 1965.

Further sampling was carried out in the late 1990s for the recovery of archaeobotanical evidence and new high precision radiocarbon dates.