🧠 Pre-Historic India – Master Mind Map
(Palaeolithic → Mesolithic → Neolithic → Chalcolithic → Early Iron Age)
🟩 1. Meaning of Prehistory
- “Prehistory” = যে সময়ের কোনো লিখিত দলিল নেই
- Sources → Archaeology
- Stone tools
- Cave paintings
- Bones, hearths, plant remains
- Settlements
- Carbon dating, thermoluminescence
🟥 2. Major Phases of Prehistoric India
A. Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age)
📌 2 million BCE – 10,000 BCE (approx.)
Key Features:
- Hunter–gatherer society
- Nomadic lifestyle
- Stone tools → Handaxe, Cleaver, Chopper
- Controlled use of fire (later phase)
Indian Sites:
- Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh) → cave shelters, earliest art
- Soan Valley (Punjab)
- Attirampakkam (TN) → oldest stone tools in India (Acheulian)
- Chotanagpur Plateau
Sub-divisions:
- Lower Palaeolithic
- Middle Palaeolithic
- Upper Palaeolithic
→ Advanced blades, burins, cave art
B. Mesolithic Age (Middle Stone Age)
📌 10,000 – 6000 BCE
Features:
- Climate becomes warmer
- Microliths (tiny stone tools)
- Semi-nomadic → seasonal camps
- Domestication of dog begins
- Beginning of fishing, trapping
Indian Sites:
- Bagor (Rajasthan)
- Langhnaj (Gujarat)
- Adamgarh (MP)
C. Neolithic Age (New Stone Age)
📌 6000 – 2000 BCE
Features:
- Agriculture begins → wheat, barley
- Domestication: cattle, sheep, goats
- Pottery (handmade → wheel-made)
- Permanent houses → mud-brick
- Community living, storage pits
- Start of weaving
India’s Earliest Site:
- Mehrgarh (Baluchistan) → 7000–3000 BCE
- Earliest farming
- Earliest dentistry
- Handmade pottery
- Burials with grave goods
Other Sites:
- Burzahom (Kashmir) – pit dwellings, dog burial
- Chirand (Bihar)
- Koldihwa & Mahagara (UP) – rice (possibly earliest rice)
D. Chalcolithic Age (Stone–Copper Age)
📌 3000 – 1000 BCE (varies regionally)
Features:
- Use of copper + stone tools
- Rural economy
- Painted pottery
- Beginning of social stratification
- Small farming villages
Major Cultures:
- Ahar–Banas (Rajasthan)
- Malwa Culture (MP)
- Jorwe Culture (Maharashtra)
E. Proto-Historic Phase → Towards Urbanization
(Transition towards Indus Valley Civilization)
Features:
- Mixed Neolithic–Chalcolithic tools
- Large storage systems
- Planned settlements begin
- Trade networks develop
Important:
- 4000–3000 BCE → Early Indus settlements
- 3000–2500 BCE → Early Harappan Culture (Kot Diji, Amri)
🟦 3. Key Facts for Exams (One-line boosters)
- Oldest stone tools in India → Attirampakkam (TN)
- Earliest evidence of agriculture → Mehrgarh (7000 BCE)
- Earliest rice → Koldihwa (UP)
- Earliest cotton → Mehrgarh
- Cave paintings → Bhimbetka (MP)
- Microliths → Mesolithic Age hallmark
- Pit dwellings → Burzahom (J&K)
- Chalcolithic people first used copper but no iron
- Wheel-made pottery → Late Neolithic onward
🟨 4. EASY FLOW (for Instant Revision)
👉 Palaeolithic – hunters → stone tools → cave art
👉 Mesolithic – microliths → fishing → domesticated dog
👉 Neolithic – farming → pottery → houses → weaving
👉 Chalcolithic – copper + stone → small villages → trade
👉 Proto-Historic → early urbanization → leads to IVC
