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Home/Anthropology/Mains PYQ/2014/Paper I/Prehistoric Archaeology
UPSC MainsAnthropology Optional Paper I 2014 15 Marks Model Answer Available

Neolithic Culture of India — 2014 Paper I

Question · 2014 · Paper I · 15 Marks

Describe the Neolithic culture of India.

Model Answer

VAID ICS

Approach

  • Demand of Question: Describe the principal technological, economic and regional characteristics of Neolithic cultures in India.
  • Structuring the Response: Define the Neolithic, discuss major cultural features, and illustrate regional variation through important sites.
  • Key Dimensions to Cover: Agriculture, domestication, polished stone tools, pottery, permanent settlements, Mehrgarh, Burzahom, Koldihwa, Chirand, South Indian Neolithic and regional diversity.

Model Answer

Introduction: The Neolithic or New Stone Age in India marks the transition from predominantly hunting-gathering economies to increasing dependence on food production, animal domestication and settled life. It did not begin uniformly across India but developed through several regional traditions.

Major characteristics

Neolithic cultures are generally associated with:

  • agriculture;
  • domestication of animals;
  • polished stone tools;
  • permanent or semi-permanent settlements;
  • pottery in many regions;
  • storage facilities;
  • increasing craft specialization.

Thus:

Food gathering → Food production → Settled village life

  1. Northwestern region

Mehrgarh, in present-day Pakistan, represents one of the earliest food-producing traditions of the subcontinent.

Evidence includes:

  • wheat and barley cultivation;
  • cattle, sheep and goat domestication;
  • mud-brick houses;
  • craft activity.
  1. Kashmir Neolithic

Important sites include:

  • Burzahom;
  • Gufkral.

Characteristic features include:

  • pit dwellings;
  • stone and bone tools;
  • domesticated animals;
  • hunting;
  • agriculture.

Burzahom is especially known for distinctive burials and bone-tool technology.

  1. Vindhyan-Gangetic region

Important sites include:

  • Koldihwa;
  • Mahagara;
  • Chopani Mando;
  • Chirand.

Evidence includes:

  • settled habitation;
  • agriculture;
  • domesticated animals;
  • ground stone implements.

Claims regarding very early rice cultivation at some Vindhyan sites remain important in debates on agricultural origins.

  1. Northeastern India

Neolithic sites of Northeast India show:

  • ground and polished stone axes;
  • shouldered celts;
  • cord-impressed pottery.

These traditions display connections with wider Southeast Asian technological patterns.

  1. South Indian Neolithic

Important sites include:

  • Hallur;
  • Utnur;
  • Piklihal;
  • Tekkalakota.

Major features include:

  • cattle pastoralism;
  • cultivation;
  • ground stone axes;
  • permanent settlements.

Distinctive ash mounds at several South Indian sites are associated with intensive cattle-keeping activities.

Economic life

Neolithic subsistence was often mixed:

Agriculture + Pastoralism + Hunting + Gathering

Hence food production did not immediately eliminate older subsistence strategies.

Social implications

Sedentism encouraged:

  • larger settlements;
  • storage;
  • household property;
  • increased population;
  • division of labour.

The Neolithic therefore laid the basis for later village and complex societies.

Conclusion

The Indian Neolithic was not a single homogeneous culture but a set of regional adaptations involving agriculture, pastoralism, polished stone technology and increasing sedentism. From Kashmir and the Gangetic plains to Northeast and South India, diverse Neolithic traditions demonstrate multiple pathways toward food production and settled social life.

2026 Write a detailed note on the characteristic features, chronology, geographical distribution, tool types and lifeways of Magdalenian cultural tradition of Europe. 2026 What are the evidences available regarding crops and domesticated animals of Indus Valley Civilization? What are the views of the scholars regarding Indus script? 2026 Discuss with examples, how general comparative analogy has been used in ethnoarchaeological studies in India. 2026 Make a critical appraisal of the mesolithic culture of Ganga basin with reference to artifacts, faunal and human skeletal remains excavated from different sites.

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