Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

The Big Questions

• How did humans live on Earth before the beginning of civilisation?
• How did humans communicate before writing was invented?
• How is archaeology helpful in understanding our past?
• How did early civilisations interact with each other?

Before writing: what we know and how

• The period before writing is understood mainly through archaeological evidence.
• Written languages emerged at different times in different parts of the world.
• The Sindhu–Sarasvatī (Indus Valley / Harappan) civilisation had one of the earliest known writing systems.
• Harappans used a pictographic script on seals and pottery — it is still not deciphered, also called Sindhu lipi.
• Other early scripts: cuneiform of the Sumerians (Mesopotamia) and hieroglyphic of ancient Egypt.
• Both have been deciphered — they mark the beginning of the historical period, about 5000 years ago.
• From about 400 BCE, the Brahmi script was used in parts of southern India and the Ganga Valley.
• Brahmi was later formalised by Emperor Aśhoka (3rd century BCE) and Iron Age people of southern India.

The Invention of Writing: Before and After

Why Should We Study Early Human History?

• It helps us understand humankind’s biological and cultural evolution in relation to changes in climate and environment.

• To survive changing climate, humans developed tools, techniques and technology to use natural resources.
• Way of life changed from hunting–gathering → agriculture and food production.
• The ability to produce surplus food and material goods laid the foundation for civilisation.

Out of Africa

• Our earliest ancestors evolved and lived in Africa, and began moving out around 2 million years ago.
• Homo erectus — with handaxes and cleavers — was the first hominin to exit Africa.
• These tools are found in Asia and Europe, showing dispersal between 2 and 0.5 million years ago.
• Another major wave took place around 125,000 years ago — associated with early Homo sapiens.
• Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and are now spread all over the earth.

Who Were Our Human Ancestors?

• Earliest human settlements were in Africa, Asia and Europe — together called the ‘Old World’.
• Around 3.3 million years ago one ancestor made the earliest stone tools.
• This marked the beginning of ‘human behaviour’ — animals lack the cognitive ability to make tools.
• Humans thus came to be known as hominins, or tool makers.
• Tools are called extra-corporal limbs — extensions of the human body.
• Discarded tools got buried in upper layers of earth; ancestors’ remains buried deep turned into fossils.
• Tools + fossils = the major sources of evidence for reconstructing human history.

The four ancestors — learn this table

Periods in Early Human History

• Early human history is divided into periods based on technological progress — tools, beginning of agriculture, lifestyle and settlement patterns.

Palaeolithic Hunter–Gatherers

• The Stone Age is broadly divided into three stages — Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
• palaeo = old, lithic = stone → Palaeolithic = Old Stone Age.
• In the Indian subcontinent, the oldest human settlement dates back about 2 million years.
• Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu) — dated to about 1.5–1.7 million years ago.
• Isampur (Karnataka) — dated to 1.2 million years ago.

Tools and their uses

• Found at these sites: animal fossils, large cutting tools (handaxes, cleavers), scrapers and choppers of quartzite and limestone.
• Uses: chop animal meat · dig out tubers · scrape animal skin · cleave bones to extract protein-rich marrow.
• Later, smaller tools appeared — scrapers, borers and points — showing improved hunting through projectiles tipped with sharp points.
• Humans then invented the bow and arrow, plus parallel-sided blade and microblade tools from glassy rocks.
• A distinctive tool, the burin (engraver), was used to engrave symbolic features on bones and shells such as ostrich eggs.
• Microblades were fixed in a handle for ease of use.

First signs of culture

• Developed symbolic communication.
• Decorated cave walls and rock shelters with paintings.
• Used pigments to decorate their bodies.
• First to produce beads of stone, bone and shell.
• These developments belong to Homo sapiens, who spread worldwide — including Australia and the Americas — between 50000 and 12000 years ago.

Mesolithic Hunter–Gatherers

• Around 12000 years ago Earth’s climate became warmer.
• Forests and grasslands expanded into areas earlier covered by ice sheets.
• New landscapes offered more resources — small game animals, fish and edible wild grains.
• The world witnessed the first-ever population explosion in human history.
• Microlithic tools helped gather aquatic food, both marine and freshwater.
• Fishing was the mainstay of their subsistence economy.
• Art activity flourished; caves and rock shelters were frequently occupied.
• Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh) — a World Heritage Site with hundreds of painted rock shelters of Mesolithic and earlier occupation.

The Neolithic Revolution

• Hunter–gatherers became familiar with seasons and food resources → gradual shift to a food-producing way of life.
• This shift is called the Neolithic revolution.

• Hunter–gatherers made tools for procuring food; Neolithic farmers made tools for producing and processing food.
• Developed earthenware pottery in various shapes and sizes.
• Established the first village settlements, laying the foundation for the urban revolution.
• The shift to farming did not happen at the same time everywhere — it occurred at different periods in different areas.

Neolithic Period in Indian Subcontinent

• There was regional variation in when agriculture began across the subcontinent.
• Mehrgarh on the Bolan River (present-day Pakistan) is the oldest Neolithic site and earliest agricultural village — about 7000 BCE.

Life at Mehrgarh

• Built handmade sun-dried brick houses and granaries.
• Buried their dead in graves.
• Made ornaments from semi-precious stones — lapis lazuli, carnelian and shells.
• Cultivated wheat and barley; raised sheep, goats and Indian cattle — especially the zebu humped bull.
• First to make copper objects → became Chalcolithic people by about 4000 BCE.
• This laid the basis for the Bronze Age Sindhu–Sarasvatī civilisation around 3500 BCE.
• By 2500 BCE, most of the subcontinent was occupied by Neolithic agricultural communities — cattle, sheep and goat herding, with cereals, millets and pulses.
• Sanganakallu — a Neolithic site on top of a granite hill, dating 2000 BCE.

Sindhu–Sarasvatī Civilisation

• The Neolithic way of life that began at Mehrgarh around 7000 BCE spread into the middle and upper Indus valley and further east.
• Some settlements mastered copper extraction from ores around 4000 BCE → earliest Chalcolithic sites, marking the start of the Bronze Age.
• Copper tools in the fertile alluvial plains of the Indus and Ghaggar-Sarasvatī basins enhanced productivity and prosperity.
• Large-scale pottery production showed diverse regional styles.
• At Bhirrana and Kunal in the dried Sarasvati river belt, the Pre-Harappan phase began between 7000 and 5500 BCE.
• Regional styles became standard features of the civilisation by about 2500 BCE.
• Because these sites show cultural continuity, this stage is called Early Harappan.

What continued into the Early Harappan stage

• Pottery traditions · semi-precious stone beads · shell bangles · terracotta objects · copper working.
• New developments: perimeter wall around settlements, use of seals, and probably the beginnings of the Harappan script.
• Harappans were not merely agriculturists — they practised many arts and crafts; pottery boosted their economy.
• Crafts showing gradual development: copper work, shell work, semi-precious stone beads.
• Early Harappan bead production found at Harappa (Pakistan), Kunal (Haryana) and Datrana (Gujarat).
• Graffiti on pottery and seals with geometric and animal motifs at Harappa, Rehman Dheri and Kunal were forerunners of the script and inscribed seals.
• These technological advances and economic integration led to the emergence of urban centres; the civilisation emerged by 2600 BCE.

Bronze Age Civilisations Outside India

• Three major civilisations were contemporary with the Harappans — Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Chinese.
• All four early world civilisations emerged in river plains:

• Mesopotamia and the Indus–Ghaggar-Sarasvatī valleys are geographically closer → strong contacts and trade between them.
• The Egyptian and Chinese civilisations have little tangible evidence of direct contact with the Sindhu–Sarasvatī civilisation.

Mesopotamian Civilisation

• The earliest city-based civilisation emerged in Mesopotamia.
• Mesopotamia is Greek for “the land in between” — land drained by the Euphrates and Tigris.
• Today this region is mainly Iraq and Kuwait, with parts of Turkey and southwestern Iran.
• The crescent-shaped foothills of the Zagros and Taurus, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, are called the ‘fertile crescent’ due to high agricultural potential.
• Farming began here 12000 years before present; copper tools arrived around 4500 BCE.
• Over the next 2000 years large cities became ‘city-states’ by developing governing systems.
• Four major city-based civilisations from 3500 BCE: Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian.

a. The Sumerians

• Earliest to evolve into a city-based civilisation at Ur and other cities in Sumer (present-day southern Iraq).
• First to build a system of dams and canals for irrigation.
• First to use mud bricks and burnt bricks in houses, defensive walls and other structures.
• Worshipped multiple gods believed to control natural forces such as floods and winds.
• Each city built a grand temple called a ziggurat for its chief god, and the city grew around it.
• All economic activity — agriculture, trade, transport — was tied to the temple authority.
• Entry to the sacred temple was restricted to high priests and priestesses, part of the ruling class — showing clear social hierarchy.
• Cities were large settlements: kings lived in grand palaces, people in small brick houses.
• Crafts practised: metalworking, pottery, textiles. Merchants and traders also existed.

The Beginning of Writing

• The Sumerians were the first to start writing around 3200 BCE.
• Their system is called cuneiform — from the wedge-shaped tool used by scribes.
• Hundreds of marks were pressed onto damp clay tablets using sharp wedge-shaped reeds.
• Scribes enjoyed high status, similar to priests and priestesses.
• By 3000 BCE cuneiform was used all over Mesopotamia, even by city-states speaking different languages.
• Tablets record myths and epics, hymns, “law codes”, educational treatises, and farming and craft activities.

b. The Akkadians

• Sumerian power was overshadowed in 2334 BCE by a new city-state centred on Akkad in central Mesopotamia.
• People spoke Akkadian, a different language, but used the same cuneiform script.
• Akkadian records document the world’s first dynastic empire and the evolution of creative literature.
• Tablets of King Sargon mention trade with Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha.

• Goods traded with the Harappans: semiprecious stone beads, ivory, timber, gold dust and probably copper.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, written during this civilisation, is one of the earliest stories ever written.

c. The Assyrians

• The Akkadian empire lost supremacy around 2154 BCE to a new city-state, Assur, in northern Mesopotamia.
• Assyrian civilisation lasted till early 1700 BCE.
• In a short period Assyrian dominance spread across Mesopotamia and neighbouring regions in the west and south.

d. The Babylonians

• Babylonia gained dominance in central Mesopotamia from 1900 BCE onwards.
• Its glory began with Hammurabi in 1792 BCE, who expanded the small city-state into a large empire.
• His most significant contribution — the Code of Hammurabi, rules for civil and social conduct, a foundational model for many future legal systems.
• By the end of 1400 BCE the Babylonians lost prominence due to attacks by the Hittites and other rising powers.
• Other causes: environmental degradation · pressure on agricultural lands · internal political and economic problems.

Egyptian Civilisation

• One of the earliest civilisations, known for rich historical records and lasting influence.
• Egypt was known to the Greeks and Romans; Herodotus wrote about it as early as the 5th century BCE.
• A 19th-century collection de L’Egypte also gives details of its history.
• History is also reconstructed from papyrus or old paper records.
• Libraries dating to 2000 BCE stored papyrus scrolls in labelled jars — one contained the oldest version of ‘Sindbad the Sailor’.
• Short stories include animal fables linked to ‘Aesop’s Fables’, and the oldest known form of ‘Cinderella’.

The Nile and the growth of Egypt

• City-states emerged around 3000 BCE as population and resources increased.
• Every summer the Nile flooded, leaving rich mud called ‘kemet’, excellent for crops.
• Egyptians called their land Kemet — meaning ‘the black’, from the black river valley soil.
• About 5000 years ago farmers dug ditches to divert Nile water into fields and stored it in reservoirs.
• By counting days between floods, Egyptians developed a calendar.
• Digging ditches and building dams needed collective effort → growth of local government and an administrative class.

Pharaohs, pyramids and beliefs

• Powerful individuals called ‘Pharaohs’ emerged as rulers of Egypt.
• After death they were buried deep underground; a rectangular structure called a mastaba was placed over the burial chamber.
• Mastabas placed one on top of another formed a pyramid — for example the step pyramid at Saqqara.
• Egyptians believed each person had a ka (a spiritual double) that lived on after death if the body was preserved through mummification.

• Leisure: swimming, canoeing, board games, music and dancing.
• Festivals were central — each god had a festival where the statue was paraded with music from instruments such as the ‘sistrum’.
• The Sed festival marked a king’s 30th year on the throne.
• Egyptian women enjoyed more rights than Greek or Roman women — they could own property and run businesses.
• Cleopatra (69–30 BCE) was trained from childhood to rule and became queen at eighteen.

The Chinese Civilisation

• Flourished along the Huang He (Yellow River) and the Yangtze.
• These valleys were centres of early Chinese Neolithic cultures around 7000 BCE.
• Around 2000 BCE, copper/bronze metallurgy brought Yellow River settlements to the threshold of the Bronze Age.
• Only around 1600 BCE did urban centres emerge, with growing agricultural productivity and advances in metallurgy and craft.
• This led to the rise of the first Chinese Bronze Age territorial empire.
• By 600 BCE iron became popular — the Chinese Iron Age dates from this period.
• The name ‘China’ probably comes from the Iron Age Qin (Ch’in) dynasty (221–206 BCE), the first imperial dynasty, credited with unifying the country.

How do we know what we know about China?

• China has abundant historical records as official historiographers recorded events.
• The earliest source is the ‘oracles’ — symbols made on animal bones and tortoise shells.
• Bones were heated until they cracked; interpretations were made from the crack patterns.
• Oracles were used to foretell the future; today they reveal the hopes, desires and fears of the early Chinese.
• The Chinese script is logographic — characters represent entire words or morphemes rather than sounds.

Crafts, defence and trade

• Jade objects and figurines were ritual or prestige objects — jade was not locally available and was obtained from outside China.
• Jade carved into shapes such as fish, tied with a cord, produced a clear musical sound when struck.
• Marble was carved into bird and animal ornaments and used as foundations for wooden pillars.
• The Chinese mastered bronze metallurgy for weapons, tools and ritual vessels.
• The Great Wall of China was built over a period of two thousand years; several walls were built from 680 BCE by the Zhou and other dynasties against nomadic raids, later joined together. Repairs continued till the 17th century CE.
• Silk was known from the Neolithic period (4000–3000 BCE) and became a major export around the 2nd century BCE under the Han dynasty — the route became the ‘Silk Route’.
• By 1500 BCE Chinese Bronze Age society was highly stratified: ruling class, nobles and aristocrats at the top, then farmers and labourers.

Master Questions — cover the whole chapter

Answer these seven and you have revised every concept in the chapter.

Test Yourself — 25 Question Quiz