Neolithic culture in India

The Neolithic cultures mark the end of the Stone Age. Neolithic of India constitutes an important phase. A Neolithic celt was found in India in 1842 by Le Mesurie in the Raichur district of Karnataka, and later by John Lubbock in 1867 in the Brahmaputra valley of upper Assam. Extensive explorations and excavations have yielded immense amount of material about the Neolithic cultures of India. One thing to note about Indian Neolithic is that Neolithic cultures in India did not develop everywhere at the same time, nor did they end simultaneously. There were regional variations too. For example, there is no evidence of plant cultivation in the north-east despite the sites yielding ‘Neolithic’ tools. In the Kashmir valley the Neolithic cultures do not seem to have evolved out of the preceding Mesolithic cultures like everywhere else. In terms of plant crops, wheat and barley were predominant in Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, but rice was important in the central region around Prayagraj. The south Indian Neolithic is unique in the sense that it has ash mounds, with the evidence of millet cultivation. Thus, each of these regional Neolithic traditions seem to have been conditioned by local, ecological conditions and need to be studied separately. Broadly, however, we can say that the Neolithic of India was a farming and pastoralism based sedentary/semisedentary village culture.

 

The clusters of Neolithic sites that are found in different parts of India. The Neolithic sites of the Indian subcontinent or South Asia are divided into various regional cultural groups. They are:

1. 1)     North-western region – The areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
2. 2)      Northern region – The region of Kashmir.
3. 3)      The Vindhyan hills and the Ganga valley – Vindhyan region of Prayagraj, Mirzapur and the Belan river valley.
4. 4)      Mid-Eastern Ganga valley region – The area of northern part of Bihar.
5. 5)      Central Eastern region – Including the Chotta Nagpur area with Odisha and Bengal region.
6. 6)      North-eastern region – Assam and the sub-Himalayan region.
7. 7)      Southern region – Peninsular India, mainly Andhra, Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu.

Subcribe on Youtube - IGNOU SERVICE

For PDF copy of Solved Assignment

WhatsApp Us - 9113311883(Paid)