Which of the following facts about the Adamgarh archaeological site in Narmadapuram district of Madhya Pradesh is false?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, 'Archaeological excavations were carried out at this site by V. S. Wakankar.' The question asks for the FALSE statement, and this is the one that does not hold. The excavation of Adamgarh is credited to R. V. Joshi of the Archaeological Survey of India, who dug the hill in the 1960s and used its stratified deposits to work out the Acheulian-to-Mesolithic sequence of central India. Dr. Vishnu Shridhar Wakankar's name belongs to Bhimbetka in Raisen district — he spotted those rock shelters in 1957-58 and led the study of their painted caves for the rest of his life. Wakankar is the most quoted archaeologist in Madhya Pradesh, and the paper exploits exactly that reflex by attaching his name to a neighbouring but different site. The other three statements are all true of Adamgarh.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This statement is TRUE, so it cannot be the answer. Adamgarh is a low hill just outside Hoshangabad town — now Narmadapuram — on the southern side of the Narmada, and the river is the reason the site was occupied at all.  (b) This statement is TRUE. The Mesolithic layer at Adamgarh yielded bones of cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig and dog, and standard textbooks cite Adamgarh together with Bagor in Rajasthan as the earliest evidence of animal domestication in India. The claim is about India, not the world, and that is how MPPSC uses it.  (d) This statement is TRUE. Below the microlithic (Mesolithic) levels the hill has yielded Lower Palaeolithic Acheulian tools — hand-axes and cleavers — along with a rich collection of animal bone, which is precisely what makes the site's sequence valuable.

Concept: Adamgarh is a rock-shelter site on a hill near Hoshangabad (Narmadapuram), close to the Narmada. Its shelters carry prehistoric paintings, and the deposits under them run from Lower Palaeolithic (Acheulian) hand-axes and cleavers up through a thick Mesolithic microlithic layer. That Mesolithic layer is the famous part: alongside the tiny stone blades came the bones of cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig and dog — animals kept, not merely hunted. Adamgarh is therefore quoted with Bagor (Rajasthan) as the earliest evidence of animal domestication in India, around the middle of the sixth millennium BCE. What Adamgarh is not is a Wakankar site.

State PCS 2026 Q96 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q96 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer