EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 21 of 120

Correct — A, (a) the statement that Alexander Cunningham, the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, was of the view that the history of India began with the origins of the Indus Valley Civilization. That is the one statement in the set which inverts the record. The stem is a negative ask — the booklet prints the 'not' in bold italic — so the option you are hunting is the false one, and the other three are all sound. Cunningham (1814-1893) was indeed the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, but his working frame was the Early Historic period, from roughly the sixth century BCE onwards. He was a soldier-engineer turned antiquarian who used the travel accounts of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang as field guides, matching their itineraries to mounds on the ground, and he read inscriptions and collected coins to fix dynasties and dates. On that method, the beginnings of Indian history lay with the Ganga valley cities, the Buddha's lifetime and the early historic dynasties — not with an Indus civilization, whose existence nobody suspected in his lifetime. The Harappan cities were only excavated in 1921-22, at Harappa by Daya Ram Sahni and at Mohenjodaro by R. D. Banerji, and John Marshall announced the discovery of a new civilization to the world in 1924, three decades after Cunningham's death. The detail that makes the option a deliberate trap rather than a careless one is that Cunningham had in fact been shown a Harappan seal by an Englishman and could not place it: because it did not fit any period he recognised, he treated it as an oddity, possibly foreign to India, rather than as evidence of an older civilization. So the true statement is close to the exact opposite of (a) — Cunningham's history of India began with the Early Historic period, and he missed the Indus evidence that passed through his own hands. Options (b), (c) and (d) each state something the standard accounts affirm, which is why (a) is the answer.

• (b)John Marshall generally adopted the method of excavation along regular horizontal units and ignored the stratigraphy of the site. — This is correct as printed, so it cannot be the answer to a 'not correct' ask. John Marshall, Director-General from 1902 to 1928, was the first professional archaeologist to head the Survey and the man under whose watch the Harappan civilization was announced, but his excavation technique was the weak point of his tenure: he dug along regular horizontal units measured uniformly across the whole mound, which meant that material lying at the same depth in different parts of a site was treated as contemporary even when it was not. Because a mound is built of superimposed occupation layers that rise and dip unevenly, this flattened the sequence and mixed finds of different periods together. Noticing that the statement is a criticism of a famous archaeologist is not a reason to reject it — the criticism is the textbook position.
• (c)R. E. M. Wheeler first recognized the necessity to follow the stratigraphy of the mound rather than dig along horizontal lines. — Also correct, and it is the companion fact to (b). Sir R. E. M. Wheeler, Director-General from 1944 to 1948, brought military precision to Indian field archaeology and insisted that a mound be excavated by following its stratigraphy — the actual sequence of deposited layers — rather than by cutting mechanically along uniform horizontal lines. His verticals at Harappa in 1946, cut through the mound to read the layers in section, are the standard illustration. Recognising the sequence of layers is what allows finds to be placed in relative chronological order, so this shift is treated as the methodological turning point between Marshall's practice and modern excavation. A candidate who remembers only the pairing 'Marshall - horizontal units, Wheeler - stratigraphy' can retire both (b) and (c) at once.
• (d)Amalananda Ghosh was the first to identify similarities between pre-Harappan and mature-Harappan cultures. — Correct as well, and the least familiar of the three true statements, which is exactly why it tempts a guesser. Amalananda Ghosh, Director-General of the Survey from 1953 to 1968, surveyed the dry beds of the Ghaggar and its tributaries in northern Rajasthan in the early 1950s and identified there the Sothi assemblage, which he read as standing earlier than, and continuous with, the mature Harappan material — the recognition conventionally credited to him for first linking a pre-Harappan culture to the mature phase rather than treating the cities as arriving fully formed. Unfamiliarity is not falsity: in a four-statement negative item, the statement you have never met is the one to test last, after you have checked the three you can actually verify.

This question is about the history of the discipline rather than about the past it studies, and the syllabus point is a short, ordered story that repays learning as a sequence. Alexander Cunningham, appointed Archaeological Surveyor in 1861 and the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, built Indian archaeology around texts: the itineraries of Faxian and Xuanzang told him where to dig, and inscriptions and coins told him whose remains he had found. His horizon therefore began with the Early Historic period, about the sixth century BCE. John Marshall (Director-General 1902-1928) professionalised the Survey and presided over the announcement of the Harappan civilization in 1924, after the 1921-22 excavations by Daya Ram Sahni at Harappa and R. D. Banerji at Mohenjodaro, but he excavated in uniform horizontal spits and so lost the stratigraphic sequence. R. E. M. Wheeler (1944-1948) replaced that with layer-by-layer excavation, the principle that a site must be read in the order in which it was deposited. Amalananda Ghosh (1953-1968) extended the map, using survey of the Ghaggar system to connect a pre-Harappan assemblage with the mature phase. The through-line is a widening of the frame: from a history that started with the Buddha's century, to one that starts with cities a millennium and a half older, to one that asks where those cities themselves came from.

EPFO's General Studies paper opens its Part B history block with ancient and medieval material, and this item shows the form that block prefers — not 'when did X happen' but 'which of these four statements about a scholarly episode is false'. That form rewards a different kind of preparation. Dates alone will not carry you; you need to be able to say what each figure believed and what each did wrong, because the falsehood is usually manufactured by attributing to one person the position of another or by reversing a known judgement. The negative ask compounds the difficulty. The booklet prints the 'not' in bold italic, which is a genuine help, but under time pressure candidates still read the first plausible-sounding statement, mark it, and move on. The discipline that works is mechanical: read the ask twice, then label each of the four options T or F in the margin, and only then answer. On this paper a wrong answer costs one-third of 2.5 marks, so an option you have actively falsified is worth marking and an option you merely find unfamiliar is not.

• Alexander Cunningham was the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India and worked outward from texts — the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang, plus inscriptions and coins — so his India began with the Early Historic period of about the sixth century BCE, not with the Indus civilization, which was unknown in his lifetime.
• Cunningham was shown a Harappan seal by an Englishman and could not fit it into any period he recognised; he treated it as an object foreign to India rather than as evidence of an older civilization, which is the episode the wrong statement in this item inverts.
• The Harappan cities were excavated in 1921-22 — Harappa by Daya Ram Sahni, Mohenjodaro by R. D. Banerji — and John Marshall announced the discovery of a new civilization in 1924, decades after Cunningham's death in 1893.
• John Marshall, Director-General 1902-1928, excavated along regular horizontal units measured uniformly across a mound and so ignored its stratigraphy, mixing finds of different periods; R. E. M. Wheeler, Director-General 1944-1948, corrected this by insisting that excavation follow the layers of the mound.
• Amalananda Ghosh, Director-General 1953-1968, surveyed the dry Ghaggar system in northern Rajasthan in the early 1950s, identified the Sothi assemblage there, and is conventionally credited with first recognising similarities between pre-Harappan and mature-Harappan cultures.

• Reading the ask as 'which is correct' when the booklet has printed the 'not' in bold italic; on this paper seventeen questions carry a negative ask, and marking the first true-sounding statement is the single commonest way to lose those marks
• Assuming that a statement critical of a famous archaeologist must be the false one — the criticisms of Marshall's horizontal digging and the credit to Wheeler for stratigraphy are both standard textbook positions
• Confusing what Cunningham could have known with what he did know: he handled a Harappan seal but had no framework for it, so he is remembered for missing the Indus civilization, not for founding its study
• Rejecting the least familiar name in the set — here Amalananda Ghosh — simply because you have not met it; in a negative item the unfamiliar statement should be checked last, not first

The ancient-history block of the APFC General Studies paper leans towards art, archaeology and the sources of history rather than towards dynastic narrative, and it frequently uses the four-statement negative format seen here. Expect the false statement to be built by swapping two scholars' positions, by shifting a discovery to the wrong century, or by giving a person credit for something a successor did. The productive revision unit is therefore a person-plus-position card — Cunningham with texts and the Early Historic frame, Marshall with horizontal units and the 1924 announcement, Wheeler with stratigraphy, Ghosh with the Ghaggar survey — because that is precisely the material the question manufactures its falsehood from.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The excavations of 1921-22 that first brought the Harappan cities to light were conducted at Harappa and Mohenjodaro respectively by which one of the following pairs of archaeologists?

  • (a)Alexander Cunningham and John Marshall
  • (b)Daya Ram Sahni and R. D. Banerji
  • (c)R. E. M. Wheeler and S. R. Rao
  • (d)Amalananda Ghosh and B. B. Lal

  Answer(b) Daya Ram Sahni and R. D. Banerji — Sahni excavated at Harappa and Banerji at Mohenjodaro in 1921-22, and it was on the strength of their work that John Marshall, then Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, announced the discovery of a new civilization in 1924. Cunningham had died in 1893; Wheeler and Rao worked in the 1940s and after, at Harappa and Lothal respectively; and Ghosh and Lal belong to the post-Independence surveys of the Ghaggar system and Kalibangan.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The principle that a mound must be excavated by following the sequence of its deposited layers, rather than along uniform horizontal units measured across the whole site, was introduced into Indian archaeology chiefly by

  • (a)Alexander Cunningham
  • (b)John Marshall
  • (c)R. E. M. Wheeler
  • (d)Daya Ram Sahni

  Answer(c) R. E. M. Wheeler — as Director-General from 1944 to 1948 he insisted that excavation follow the stratigraphy of the mound, correcting exactly the practice of digging in uniform horizontal spits that Marshall had used and that had mixed material of different periods. Cunningham worked from texts and inscriptions rather than from layer sequences, Marshall is the man whose method Wheeler rectified, and Sahni is remembered for the 1921 excavation at Harappa.