What is the first age in the prehistoric period called?
- A.Palaeolithic age
- B.Metal age
- C.Copper age
- D.Neolithic age
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, Palaeolithic age. The Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age is the first and by far the longest phase of prehistory, the time of hunting and food gathering, of hand axes, cleavers, flakes and burins, and of people who had neither agriculture nor pottery. Option B is wrong because the metal age comes at the end of the sequence, after stone had been used for hundreds of thousands of years. Option C is wrong because the copper age, the Chalcolithic, is the phase in which copper tools appear beside stone blades and villages already farm. Option D is wrong because the Neolithic or New Stone Age is the third stage, marked by polished ground tools, pottery, farming and settled villages. The order to memorise is Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and then the iron age.
Read the full article: Prehistoric India: Stone Age and Chalcolithic Cultures
Practice Questions
View allWhich one of the following is a Palaeolithic site?
- A.Inamgaon
- B.Hallur
- C.Bhimbetka
- D.Burzahom
Show answer
The rock shelters of Bhimbetka in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh were occupied from the Lower Palaeolithic onwards, and their lower layers have yielded hand axes and cleavers along with the earliest of their paintings.
Read the full explanation →At which place was it a general practice to lay the dead with the head towards the north?
- A.Inamgaon
- B.Burzahom
- C.Mehrgarh
- D.Bhimbetka
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At this Chalcolithic settlement on the Ghod river in Maharashtra the dead were buried within the habitation area, laid out straight with the head pointing north, and pots with food and water were placed beside them.
Read the full explanation →In some areas people started living in villages about 8000 years ago. Which of the following were among these areas?
- A.Areas around Narmada
- B.Sulaiman and Kirthar hills
- C.Ganga and Yamuna doab
- D.Deccan and Konkan
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The north-western hill belt of the Sulaiman and Kirthar ranges holds Mehrgarh in the Bolan valley, the earliest village of the subcontinent, where wheat and barley were grown and cattle, sheep and goat were kept about eight thousand years ago.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following statements is false about the Chalcolithic cultures of India?
- A.Chalcolithic cultures were predominantly a rural culture.
- B.The people of Chalcolithic cultures mostly lived near hills and rivers.
- C.Black and red ware were widely used in these cultures.
- D.Jorwe is a Chalcolithic site, which belongs to Malwa culture.
Show answer
The correct answer is D, because Jorwe is a Chalcolithic site in Maharashtra that gives its name to the Jorwe culture, not to the Malwa culture, which is named after its own region in Madhya Pradesh and is represented by Navdatoli, Eran and Nagda.
Read the full explanation →Who discovered the first Palaeolithic tool in India in 1863 at Pallavaram near Madras?
- A.Robert Bruce Foote
- B.V.S. Wakankar
- C.Daya Ram Sahni
- D.John Marshall
Show answer
A geologist with the Geological Survey of India, he picked up a stone hand axe at Pallavaram near Madras in 1863, the first recorded Palaeolithic tool from the subcontinent, and his later surveys in the south earned him the name of the father of Indian prehistory.
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