Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

1. Chapter at a Glance

Writing is only about 5,000 years old, yet human-like ancestors have been making tools for more than 3 million years. So more than 99 per cent of human history happened before writing, and we know it mainly through archaeology — tools, fossils, bones, pottery and cave art. This chapter traces our journey from the first stone tools in Africa, through the Old, Middle and New Stone Ages, to farming villages and finally the great Bronze Age civilisations of the Indus (Sindhu–Sarasvatī), Mesopotamia, Egypt and China.

2. Before and After Writing

Three of the earliest writing systems appeared at roughly the same time: the Harappan (Sindhu) script on seals and pottery, the cuneiform of Sumer and the hieroglyphs of Egypt. Cuneiform and hieroglyphs have been deciphered; the Harappan script has not, so we still cannot read what the Harappans wrote. In India, the Brahmi script was in use from about 400 BCE in the Ganga valley and the south, and was used for Emperor Aśhoka's inscriptions in the 3rd century BCE.

3. Our Human Ancestors

Biological evolution is the slow physical and genetic change by which early ancestors such as the australopithecines ("southern apes") gave rise to modern humans, Homo sapiens. Cultural evolution is how humans learned to adapt — with tools, fire, shelter and new ways of getting food — during the Quaternary Period, the last 26 lakh (2.6 million) years.

The earliest stone tools, about 3.3 million years old, mark the start of "human behaviour" — no animal makes such tools. Tools are sometimes called extra-corporal limbs because they extend what our hands can do. Africa, Asia and Europe, where the oldest settlements are found, are together called the Old World. Archaeologists dig sites, study fossils (remains turned to stone over long periods) and even make and use copies of ancient tools to understand how they worked.

4. The Stone Age in India and the World

Palaeolithic hunter–gatherers

Humans lived in the Indian subcontinent from about 2 million years ago. Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu) is dated to about 1.5 million years and Isampur (Karnataka) to about 1.2 million years; both yielded handaxes, cleavers, scrapers and choppers of quartzite and limestone, used to cut meat, dig tubers, scrape skins and crack bones for marrow. Later came smaller tools — scrapers, borers and points — and projectiles with sharp tips. In the Upper Palaeolithic, Homo sapiens invented the bow and arrow, made fine blades and microblades, engraved bones and ostrich-egg shells with burins, painted cave walls, decorated their bodies with pigments and made the first beads.

Mesolithic hunter–gatherers

About 12,000 years ago the climate warmed. Forests and grasslands spread where ice once lay, offering fish, small game and wild grains. Populations grew sharply — the first population explosion in history. Microliths fitted into handles made arrows, harpoons and sickles, and fishing became central. Art flourished: Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has hundreds of painted rock shelters with Mesolithic and older occupation.

5. The Neolithic Revolution

As hunter–gatherers came to know the seasons and the life cycles of plants and animals, they began to domesticate them — bringing them under human control and breeding new varieties. This change from collecting food to producing food is called the Neolithic Revolution. It was a revolution because it changed everything: people settled in villages, stored surplus grain, made pottery, wove cloth and, in time, built towns. It did not happen everywhere at once — wheat and barley in West Asia, rice and millets in China, millets and rice in India, pearl millet in West Africa, and maize in the Americas each have their own timelines.

Neolithic India

• Mehrgarh, on the Bolan river in Balochistan (Pakistan), is the oldest known farming village of the subcontinent, from about 7000 BCE. Its people built sun-dried mud-brick houses and granaries, grew wheat and barley, kept sheep, goats and humped zebu cattle, buried their dead and made ornaments of lapis lazuli, carnelian and shell. By about 4000 BCE they used copper — becoming Chalcolithic.
• By 2500 BCE most of the subcontinent had Neolithic farming communities — e.g. Burzahom (Kashmir), Sanganakallu (Karnataka, on a granite hilltop), Lahuradewa (Uttar Pradesh, rice) and Daojali Hading (Assam).

6. The Sindhu–Sarasvatī (Harappan) Civilisation

Farming spread from the Mehrgarh region into the Indus and Ghaggar–Sarasvatī plains. Copper tools raised productivity, pottery styles multiplied, and by about 2600 BCE cities had emerged. Some radiocarbon dates from Bhirrana and Kunal (Haryana) suggest that pre-Harappan settlement there began very early, between 7000 and 5500 BCE.

• Kalibangan (Rajasthan) preserves an Early Harappan ploughed field with criss-cross furrows, suggesting two crops grown together — a practice like today's mixed cropping, nearly 5,000 years old.
• Standard cubical stone weights followed a binary series (1, 2, 4, 8, 16…) for small units and multiples of ten for large ones — vital for fair long-distance trade.
• Water skills: Early Harappans built gabarbands (check dams) in Balochistan; Dholavira (Kachchh) diverted two streams into a chain of stone reservoirs; Lothal (Gujarat) has a large burnt-brick basin often identified as a dockyard.

7. Mesopotamia

All four great early civilisations grew on river plains: the Indus and Sarasvatī, the Tigris and Euphrates (Mesopotamia), the Nile (Egypt) and the Huang He (China). Rivers gave water, fertile silt, fish and transport. Mesopotamia is Greek for "the land between the rivers" — mostly today's Iraq and Kuwait, with parts of Turkey and Iran. The arc of fertile land from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf is the Fertile Crescent, where farming began about 12,000 years ago. The earliest city-based civilisation arose here.

Society was hierarchical: kings in palaces, priests and priestesses with sole access to the temples, and most people living in small brick houses as farmers, potters, metalworkers, weavers and traders. Temples controlled much of the economy.

Cuneiform and Sumerian inventions

Cuneiform (from Latin cuneus, wedge) was written by pressing a reed stylus into soft clay tablets. Scribes enjoyed high status. By 3000 BCE many city-states used it, even for different languages. Tablets record myths and epics (the Epic of Gilgamesh), hymns, laws, schoolwork and accounts of farms and crafts. The Sumerians also gave us the wheeled cart, the sailboat, and a number system based on 60 — the source of the 60-minute hour, 60-second minute and 360-degree circle.

8. Egypt

Egypt is known from papyrus records, monuments and Greek writers like Herodotus (5th century BCE). The Nile flooded every summer, leaving black fertile silt — so Egyptians called their land Kemet, "the black land". Farmers dug ditches and reservoirs to store floodwater, and by counting the days between floods they made a 365-day calendar (12 months of 30 days + 5 extra days) linked to the rising of the star Sirius, with three seasons — inundation, growing and harvest. Such shared works needed organisation, helping local government grow. Because the Nile flows north, the delta in the north is Lower Egypt and the valley in the south is Upper Egypt.

• Pharaohs ruled Egypt. Early burials had a flat-topped mastaba over the tomb; stacking mastabas produced the step pyramid at Saqqara, and later the true pyramids at Giza.
• Egyptians believed each person had a ka (spiritual double) that lived on if the body was preserved, so they practised mummification: organs (except the heart) removed, the body dried with natron, oiled and wrapped in linen.
• Society formed a pyramid: pharaoh → officials, nobles and priests → landholders, artisans and merchants → serfs and slaves.
• Women could own property and run businesses; Cleopatra (69–30 BCE) became queen at eighteen. Festivals such as the Sed festival marked a king's 30th year on the throne.
• Papyrus sheets were made from strips of the papyrus plant; the Papyrus Ebers lists over 700 medical remedies.

9. China

Chinese civilisation grew along the Huang He (Yellow River) and the Yangtze, centres of Neolithic farming from about 7000 BCE. Bronze working began around 2000 BCE, and cities emerged by about 1600 BCE.

• Oracle bones: symbols were carved on animal bones and tortoise shells, which were heated until they cracked; the cracks were read to foretell the future.
• Chinese script is logographic — characters stand for whole words or meaningful units, not sounds.
• Craftsmen carved jade (brought from outside China) into ritual and prestige objects — even musical chimes — and cast fine bronze vessels.
• The Great Wall began as separate walls from the 7th century BCE against nomadic raids; they were joined and extended over some 2,000 years, with major work continuing into the 17th century CE.
• Silk was known from Neolithic times. China was also the first to use paper money and to select officials through public examinations (tested in archery, riding, calculation, writing and music in early times).

All four civilisations arose independently in fertile river plains, yet share common features: surplus farming, cities, crafts, trade, writing, administration and social hierarchy. Many of our cultural roots go back to these Bronze Age societies.

10. Master Table: Key Terms

11. Master Summary Table

Chart — share of human history (approx. %):

12. Mind Map

13. Tips and Tricks

14. Important One-liners

• The oldest known stone tools are about 3.3 million years old.
• Homo habilis means "handy man".
• Homo sapiens evolved in Africa about 3,00,000 years ago.
• Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu) has tools about 1.5 million years old.
• Bhimbetka rock shelters are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Mehrgarh is the earliest farming village of the subcontinent.
• Kalibangan has an Early Harappan ploughed field.
• The Sumerians began writing around 3200 BCE.
• Sargon of Akkad founded the first empire.
• Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822.
• Shang oracle bones are the earliest Chinese writing.

15. Exam-pattern Questions with Detailed Answers

16. Quick Revision Summary