Prehistory (People's History of India - 1)

Prehistory by Irfan Habib describes the earliest ages of human life in India, long before the existence of written records.

It is part of a larger project, a People's History of India, but is also intended to stand alone as an independent monograph. In this monograph, as well as others in the series which are published successively, the style is sought to be kept simple without making it 'popular', rhetorical or inexact. Use of technical terms is kept to a minimum, and an effort is made to provide a workable explanation of each term at first use. So too, abbreviations are avoided if these would mean nothing to the lay reader.

The monograph is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 treats in brief the geological formation of India, and changes in its climate and natural environment in so far as these relate to an understanding of our prehistory and history. Chapter 2 provides the story of man, first in the global context, and then within India. Chapter 3 describes the coming of agriculture and the beginnings of exploitative relationships.

Technical or controversial matters that need special attention are dealt with in notes appended to each chapter. There are bibliographical notes, where the more important books and articles covering the subject of the chapter are listed with brief comments. There are also tables, maps and figures, which are useful aids in understanding the subject as well as interesting in themselves.

About the Author:

Irfan Habib, eminent historian and formerly Professor of History at Aligarh Muslim University, is the author of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707 (1963; second revised edition 1999), An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982), and Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995).

The Aligarh Historians Society has been working for many years to promote a scientific and secular approach to history, and to resist communal and chauvinistic interpretations. It now has a project to compile a People's History of India and to supplement this effort, it plans to publish a series of monographs, each of which will be authored or edited by Irfan Habib.

	Preface	ix
1	The Formation of India's Physical Features and Natural Environment
1.1	The Geological Formation of India	1
1.2	Physical India since the Coming of Man	7
1.3	Climate	10
1.4	Natural Vegetation and Wildlife	14
	Note 1.1: Geological Ages	17
	Note 1.2: Bibliographical Note	19
2	Our Early Ancestors
2.1	The Evolution of the Human Species	21
2.2	Early Man in India	25
2.3	The Anatomically Modern Man	29
2.4	The Modern Human in India	33
2.5	Mesolithic Cultures	38
	Note 2.1: Dating Methods for Prehistory	44
	Note 2.2: Bibliographical Note	46
3	The Neolithic Revolution: The Coming of Agriculture and Domestication of Animals
3.1	Meaning of 'The Neolithic Revolution'	48
3.2	The First Agricultural Communities of the Western Borderland, c. 7000-4000 BC	50
3.3	Towards the Bronze Age in the Indus Basin, c. 4000 - 3200 BC	55
3.4	Rice Cultivation and Neolithic Cultures of Central and Eastern India, after 3000 BC	61
3.5	The Northern and Early Southern Neolithic Cultures, after c.3000 BC	65
	Note 3.1: The 'Lost River' of the Desert	68
	Note 3.2: Bibliographical Note	71
	Index	73