CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 75 of 120

Correct — A, 1 only. Statement 1 states the actual basis of the periodisation. Indian prehistory is divided into Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, then Mesolithic and Neolithic, and the divisions rest on tool types and the techniques used to make them — heavy core tools such as handaxes and cleavers, then flake tools, then blades and burins, then the tiny microliths of the Mesolithic, then ground and polished stone. Statement 2 reverses the truth. Regional variation is one of the strongest findings of Indian prehistory: the Soanian assemblages of the north-west are dominated by pebble and chopper tools while the peninsular sites carry Acheulean handaxes, and raw material — quartzite here, chert there — shapes what could be made. Statement 3 fails for the same reason. Cultures did not advance in a single neat line across the subcontinent; phases overlap, some regions retain older technologies long after neighbours have moved on, and hunter-gatherer and farming communities lived side by side for centuries. So only the first statement stands.

• (b)1 and 2 only — Keeps the true statement but adds the claim that there are no regional variations, which is the opposite of what the evidence shows — Soanian pebble-tool country and Acheulean handaxe country are contemporaries in different parts of India.
• (c)3 only — Selects the weakest statement and drops the sound one. Unilinear, uniform evolution across the subcontinent is precisely the model that Indian archaeology has abandoned.
• (d)1, 2 and 3 — The all-of-them pick. It fails twice: statements 2 and 3 both assert a uniformity that the archaeological record contradicts.

Stone Age archaeology in India is classified by lithic technology. The Lower Palaeolithic is marked by core tools — handaxes, cleavers and choppers; the Middle Palaeolithic by flake tools on smaller cores; the Upper Palaeolithic by blades and burins; the Mesolithic by microliths, tiny geometric pieces hafted into composite tools; and the Neolithic by ground and polished stone alongside the beginnings of farming and herding. Sites such as Bhimbetka, Attirampakkam, Hunsgi, Didwana and Chirand anchor the sequence.

Two of the three statements share the same flaw, which makes the item easier than it looks: both 2 and 3 assert uniformity, and prehistory is a subject in which nothing is uniform. The moment you notice that, the answer collapses to 1 only. The substantive point behind the item is that periodisation and progress are different claims. Tool typology gives archaeologists a usable ladder, but the ladder is a description of technology, not a timetable that every region climbed together. Raw material, environment and contact all pull regions out of step, and the coexistence of foragers with farming and even metal-using neighbours is well documented in India.

• The Stone Age in India is divided by tool type and technique — core tools, flake tools, blades and burins, microliths, and ground stone.
• Soanian pebble and chopper assemblages of the north-west are contemporary with Acheulean handaxe industries in peninsular India.
• Microliths are the diagnostic tool of the Mesolithic, usually set into wood or bone to make composite implements.
• Locally available raw material — quartzite, chert, agate, jasper — strongly conditions what tools a region produced.
• Hunter-gatherer communities persisted alongside farming and metal-using neighbours, so the sequence is not a single unbroken ladder.

• Assuming a periodisation implies a uniform timetable across regions.
• Believing that a later technology everywhere replaced an earlier one; overlap is the norm.
• Treating the Mesolithic as a brief transition — in parts of India microlith-using communities persisted for millennia.

As a statements-and-code item on how the Stone Age is classified, or by asking for the diagnostic tool or type site of a named phase.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Microliths are the characteristic tools of which one of the following phases?

  • (a)Lower Palaeolithic
  • (b)Middle Palaeolithic
  • (c)Mesolithic
  • (d)Chalcolithic

  Answer(c) Mesolithic — small geometric pieces hafted into wood or bone to make composite tools such as arrows and sickles.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Soanian tool tradition of the Indian subcontinent is associated chiefly with

  • (a)pebble and chopper tools of the north-west
  • (b)polished stone axes of the north-east
  • (c)blade and burin industries of the Deccan
  • (d)ground stone sickles of the Gangetic plain

  Answer(a) pebble and chopper tools of the north-west — an assemblage contemporary with, but distinct from, the Acheulean handaxe industries of peninsular India.