PRUDENCE, ASHOK VIHAR

2024-2025
SOCIAL SCIENCE
GRADE VI: HISTORY
CHAPTER-2 FROM HUNTING- GATHERING TO GROWING FOOD

HUNTER- GATHERERS:
People who lived in the sub- continent as early as two million years ago are termed as hunter-
gatherers. They hunted wild animals, caught fish and birds, gathered roots, fruits, nuts, seeds,
leaves, stalks and eggs.

REASONS FOR MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE FROM PLACE TO PLACE:

• Search for food- Staying at one place for a long time, they would have eaten up all the
available plants and animal resources, therefore had to search for new resources.

• Movement of animals from place to place- As plant and grass eating animals moved from
one place to another, people hunting them also had to move to different regions.

• Search for fruit bearing plants and trees.

• Search for water – For survival water was a must and human settlements near the banks
of lakes and rivers flourished, during the dry season people had to move in search of new
water source.

• In case of natural disasters- People were displaced from their settlement areas due to
various natural calamities like- earth quakes, floods and landslides.
Note: Now a day’s people travel for different reasons: They usually travel for picnics, business
purposes, to meet friends and relatives, visit places of leisure, to avoid wars, fights, education
and better job opportunities.

Sites:
Sites are places where the remains of things (tools, pots, buildings etc.) were found.

STONE AGE AND THE DIVISIONS:

USES OF STONE TOOLS FOR FOLLOWING PURPOSES:-

1. To cut meat and bone.
2. To scrape bark from trees and hides (animal skin).
3. To chop fruit, roots and wood to use as fire wood.
4. To attach to the handle of bone or wood.
5. To make spears and arrows for hunting.

CHANGES IN THE LIVES OF HUNTERS AND GATHERERS AFTER THE

DEVELOPMENT OF GRASSLANDS

• Animals that survived on grass increased like deer, antelope, goat, sheep and cattle etc.
 • People learnt the food habits and breeding seasons of the animals as a result, people now
started thinking about herding and rearing the animals themselves.

• Fishing became important.

• Many grain bearing grasses like barley, wheat and paddy (rice) grew naturally.

• Fruit ripening was also known to man now.

ROCK PAINTINGS Archaeologists have found paintings on the walls of the caves and rocks
depicting the life of people in Palaeolithic era. In India rock paintings have been found on the
walls of caves in Bhimbetka, M.P. They have more paintings of animals because:-

• Animals were the main source of food of the hunters-gatherers.

• They followed the trail of animals.

• Humans were dependent on animals for survival.

S. NO. ARCHAEOLOGI STATE ARCHAEOLOGI

CAL SITE CAL FINDINGS
1. Burzahom J&K Neolithic site
2. Kurnool caves Andhra Pradesh Ashes of fire
3. Mehrgarh Pakistan Cotton plantation
(Balochistan)
4. Daojali Hading Assam Neolithic
5. Bhimbetka Madhya Pradesh Cave paintings/
Habitation Site
6. Inamgaon Maharashtra Beads of Ostrich
Eggs
7. Hunsgi Karnataka Palaeolithic site-
limestone tools
8. Patne Maharashtra Ostrich eggs
Beginning of Agriculture
• The beginning of farming was the most revolutionary development in the human history. This
marked the beginning of progress towards a settled life.
• While staying at a place for a long duration; women and children may have observed that seeds
develop into plants. They may have learnt growing plants after that observation.
• They learnt how seeds broke off stalks; fell on the ground and new plants sprouted from them.
• They began looking after plants, protecting them from birds and animals so that they could
grow the crops.

Beginning of Herding
• Women, men and children also tamed animals. They attracted animals by leaving food for them
near their shelters.
• The first animal to be tamed was the wild ancestor of the dog.
• People encouraged only gentle animals to come near the areas where they lived.
• Animals such as sheep, goat, cattle, and pigs lived in herds and ate grass.
• People also protected these animals from wild animals.

Domestication
• This is the process in which people grow plants and look after animals. This process began
about 12000 years ago.
• Plants and animals which were looked after by people became different from wild plants and
animals.
• People select plants and animals for domestication and generally prefer to select those which
were not prone to diseases.
• Plants which yield large size grain and have strong stalks, capable of bearing the weight of the
ripe grain were selected.
• Seeds from selected plants were preserved and sown again to ensure that same quality would be
produced.
• Some of the earliest plants to be domesticated were wheat and barley.
• Earliest domesticated animals were sheep and goat.
 Benefits of Farming- A new way of life
• Farming meant there was better supply of food. Additionally, there was less reliance on hunting
and gathering.
• A plant takes many months to bear fruits and seeds. So people needed to stay at a place for
longer duration to take care of the crop. This helped humans to live a settled life.
• A grain had to be stored for both food and seed; people had to think of ways of storing it. So
people began making large clay pots or wove baskets or dug pits into ground.
• Once food was surplus, people could focus intellectual development during their spare time.
This helped in developing scientific, linguistic and artistic skills.

After the beginning of settled life; communities became bigger and eventually took the form of
villages.
A village is a place where agriculture is the main occupation of people.
Storing animals
Those animals were reared which can be used as a store of food. So they were looked after
carefully as they provide milk which is an important source of food and meat whenever required.
Towards a settled life
• Archaeologists have found evidences of huts or houses at some sites.
• They have found pit houses in Kashmir. These were dug into the ground with steps leading into
them.
• These provided shelter in cold weather. Archaeologists have also found cooking hearths both
inside and outside the huts.
• This shows people cooked food both indoors and outdoors.

Neolithic Tools
• Archaeologists have found stone tools which were different from Palaeolithic tools. These tools
were Neolithic tools.
• These tools were sharp and polished as compared to Palaeolithic tools and used for grinding
grain and other plant produce.

S.no Palaeolithic Mesolithic Neolithic

1. 2 million years -12,000 years 12,000 years ago-10,000 10,000 years ago
ago. years ago.
2. Also called as old stone age. Also called as middle Also called as new
stone age. stone age.
3. Blunt stones were used as Flint stones or sharp stone Farming was
tools. tools were used for discovered,
hunting. domestication of
animals started,
invention of new
tools for farming ,
invention of wheel
and many other
discoveries.

4. Palaeolithic site- Mesolithic site – Neolithic site-

Bhimbetka ( Madhya Brahmagiri (Karnataka) Burzahom (Jammu
Pradesh) and Kashmir)
Case Study

Life at Mehrgarh

➢ Mehrgarh is a prehistoric site; near the Bolan Pass (important route to

Iran) in a small fertile plain.
➢ People here were the first ones to grow wheat and barley.
➢ They also learnt to rear sheep and goats.
➢ It is also one of the earliest village that we know about.
➢ Remains of houses, potteries, animal bones and burial sites have been
found from this site.
➢ Houses were rectangular in shape.
➢ They were made of stone slabs.
➢ A house in Mehrgarh was usually made up of four chambers. One of
the chambers could have been used for storing grains.

Note:-

Different levels of excavation

When the archaeologist dug up the Mehrgarh site, they found out the
following.

1. In the earliest level they found bones of wild animals like deer and pig.
2. In the later level they found bones of sheep and goat.
3. In the earliest level they found bones of cattle.
4. These findings clearly suggest that the humans were hunters first and
farmers/herders and rearers later.

Burial Sites at Mehrgarh:

➢ Remains of burial sites indicate that people practiced the last rites of a
dead person.
➢ In one of the burial sites; archaeologists have found skeletons of goats,
along with the skeleton of a man.
➢ This shows that people believed in life after death.
➢ People believed that a person would need some comforts even in the afterlife.