1️⃣ Before Writing was Invented

Most of human history happened before writing was invented, so it is understood mainly through archaeological evidence (tools, bones, fossils) — not books.

• Sindhu–Sarasvatī (Harappan) people used a pictographic script (Sindhu lipi) — still undeciphered.
• Cuneiform (Sumerians, Mesopotamia) & Hieroglyphics (Egypt) — both deciphered; mark the start of the historical period, ~5000 years ago.
• In India, the Brahmi script appears from ~400 BCE, later formalised by Emperor Ashoka.

2️⃣ Why Study Early Human History?

Helps us understand humankind’s biological & cultural evolution in relation to climate & environment.

3️⃣ Who Were Our Human Ancestors?

Africa, Asia & Europe together = the ‘Old World’. ~3.3 million years ago, one ancestor made the earliest stone tools — start of “human behaviour.”

4️⃣ Periods of Early Human History

Divided by technological progress — tool use, farming, settlement patterns.

5️⃣ Palaeolithic Hunter-Gatherers

Palaeo = old, lithic = stone → Old Stone Age. In India, oldest settlement dates to ~2 million yrs ago.

• Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu) — 1.5–1.7 mya; Isampur (Karnataka) — 1.2 mya.
• Large cutting tools: handaxes, cleavers; also scrapers & choppers (quartzite/limestone) — used to chop meat, dig tubers, scrape skin.
• Later: smaller tools — scrapers, borers, points → sharper projectiles for hunting.
• Invented bow & arrow, blade/microblade tools; developed symbolic communication, cave paintings, body pigments, and the first stone/bone/shell beads.

6️⃣ Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers

~12,000 years ago, Earth’s climate warmed → forests/grasslands expanded → more resources → first population explosion in human history.

• Microlithic tools helped gather aquatic food (marine & freshwater); fishing became a mainstay.
• Art flourished; caves & rock shelters were frequently occupied.
• Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh, World Heritage Site) — hundreds of painted rock shelters.
• A distinctive tool called burin/engraver was used to engrave bones & shells.

7️⃣ The Neolithic Revolution

Hunter-gatherers gradually shifted to a food-producing way of life as they understood seasons & food resources better.

• Hallmark: domestication of select animals & plants; new breeds via cultivation/husbandry.
• Neolithic farmers made tools for food production & processing (not just procuring).
• Developed earthenware pottery in many shapes/sizes.
• Established the first village settlements — the foundation of the later urban revolution.

8️⃣ Neolithic Period in India & Mehrgarh

• Mehrgarh (Bolan River, Pakistan) — India’s oldest Neolithic site & earliest agricultural village, ~7000 BCE.
• Built sun-dried brick houses & granaries; buried dead in graves; made ornaments from lapis lazuli, carnelian, shells.
• Cultivated wheat & barley; raised sheep, goats & the humped zebu cattle.
• First to make copper objects (~4000 BCE) → became Chalcolithic people → laid the basis for the Bronze Age Sindhu–Sarasvatī civilisation (~3500 BCE).
• By 2500 BCE, most of the subcontinent had Neolithic agricultural communities (cattle/sheep/goat herding + cereals, millets, pulses).

9️⃣ Sindhu–Sarasvatī Civilisation

Neolithic life from Mehrgarh spread across the Indus & Ghaggar-Sarasvatī basins. Copper extraction (~4000 BCE) → earliest Chalcolithic sites → beginning of the Bronze Age.

• Early Harappan stage shows cultural continuity: pottery traditions, stone bead-making, shell bangles, terracotta, copper-working, perimeter walls & the beginnings of seals/script.
• Harappans practised many crafts: pottery, copper & shell work, semi-precious stone beads (Harappa, Kunal, Datrana).
• Kalibangan shows a ploughed field with horizontal & vertical furrows — double-crop (Rabi & Kharif) cultivation, still practised today!
• Harappans followed a standard binary weight system (1,2,4,8,16…) — essential for organised long-distance trade.

🔟 Bronze Age Civilisations Outside India

Four early world civilisations emerged in fertile river plains:

1️⃣1️⃣ Mesopotamian Civilisation

Mesopotamia = Greek for “land in between” (Euphrates & Tigris rivers, modern Iraq/Kuwait). The ‘Fertile Crescent’ foothills had high agricultural potential. Earliest city-based civilisation in the world.

Four major city-states (from 3500 BCE):

1️⃣2️⃣ Egyptian Civilisation

Known for rich historical records; along the river Nile, whose yearly floods left fertile black mud (‘kemet’) — Egyptians called their land Kemet.

• Calendar: 3 seasons × 4 months = 365 days, based on the star Sirius.
• Ditches & dams to irrigate fields → need for collective effort → rise of local government/administration.
• Pharaohs = rulers; buried under a mastaba, later stacked into pyramids (e.g. Step Pyramid, Saqqara).
• Egyptians believed in the ka (spiritual double) — body preserved via mummification for the afterlife.
• Social hierarchy: Pharaoh → Officials/Nobles/Priests → Free landholders/Artisans/Merchants → Serfs & Slaves.
• Egyptian women had more rights than Greek/Roman women (could own property, run business) — e.g. Cleopatra became queen at 18.
• History reconstructed from papyrus scrolls (stories, medicine, “law”).

1️⃣3️⃣ Chinese Civilisation

Flourished along the Huang He (Yellow River) & Yangtze. Neolithic cultures from ~7000 BCE; Bronze Age urban centres from ~1600 BCE.

• Chinese script is logographic — characters represent whole words/ideas.
• Prized crafts: jade objects (ritual/prestige), bronze vessels, marble carvings.
• Silk known from Neolithic times; became major trade item during Han dynasty → the ‘Silk Route’.
• China: first to introduce paper currency & civil services through public examination.