Palaeolithic Phase MCQ Quiz - Objective Question with Answer for Palaeolithic Phase - Download Free PDF

Key Points

• Middle Paleolithic Culture
  • The Middle Paleolithic Culture is also known as the Flake Culture.
  • This period is characterized by the production of flake tools, which are made by striking a small, thin piece off a larger stone core.
  • Flake tools include scrapers, points, and other tools used for cutting and hunting.
  • This culture is associated with Neanderthals in Europe and early modern humans in Africa.
  • Techniques such as the Levallois technique were used to produce these tools.

Additional Information

• Lower Paleolithic Culture
  • This period is marked by the use of crude stone tools, primarily hand axes and cleavers.
  • It is associated with Homo erectus and early human ancestors.
  • The tools were typically made using the core technique, where the core itself was shaped into a tool.
• Upper Paleolithic Culture
  • This period saw the development of more advanced tools, including blades and microliths.
  • There was also a significant increase in the use of bone, antler, and ivory for tool production.
  • Art and symbolic behavior became more prominent during this period.
• Neolithic Culture
  • The Neolithic period is characterized by the development of agriculture and the use of polished stone tools.
  • Permanent settlements and the domestication of animals are key features of this period.
  • This period marks a significant shift from a nomadic lifestyle to a more settled way of life.

The correct answer is: 'Lower Paleolithic age.'

Key Points

• Sohan Culture pertains to the Lower Paleolithic age in India.
  • The Sohan Culture is associated with the Lower Paleolithic period and is primarily found in the Sohan Valley in modern-day Pakistan and parts of northern India.
  • Artifacts from this culture include large stone tools like hand axes and cleavers, which are typical of the Lower Paleolithic age, indicating early human presence and tool-making activities in the region.

Incorrect Statements

• Upper Paleolithic age is not associated with Sohan Culture.
  • The Upper Paleolithic age, which came after the Lower Paleolithic, is associated with more advanced tools and the emergence of more complex cultural behaviors. The Sohan Culture is much older and falls in the Lower Paleolithic period.
• Mesolithic age is not related to Sohan Culture.
  • The Mesolithic age marks the transition between the Paleolithic and Neolithic, with smaller, more refined tools. The Sohan Culture, however, is much earlier and is part of the Lower Paleolithic phase.
• Neolithic age is not associated with Sohan Culture.
  • The Neolithic age is characterized by the development of agriculture and pottery. The Sohan Culture is primarily linked to the earlier Paleolithic era, which predates the Neolithic period.

Hence, Sohan Culture pertains to the Lower Paleolithic age.

Additional Information

• Lower Paleolithic Tools and Sohan Culture:
  • The tools from the Lower Paleolithic period, including those found in Sohan Culture, were large and rudimentary, designed for basic survival activities such as hunting and gathering.
  • Artifacts from the Sohan Valley have provided important evidence of early human habitation in the region, demonstrating the long history of human life on the Indian subcontinent.
• Other Key Paleolithic Cultures in India:
  • In addition to Sohan, other key Paleolithic cultures in India include the Acheulean and Mousterian cultures, which are associated with more advanced tools and techniques used by early humans in different periods.

The correct answer is: 'Lower Palaeolithic'.

Key Points

• Abbevillian tools industry is associated with the Lower Palaeolithic period.
  • This statement is correct.
  • The Abbevillian industry is one of the earliest stone tool industries, characterized by bifacial handaxes and cleavers.
  • It is part of the Lower Palaeolithic era, which is known for the development of basic stone tools by early hominins.
  • The Lower Palaeolithic period spans from about 3.3 million years ago to approximately 300,000 years ago, covering significant evolutionary changes in human ancestors.

Incorrect Options

• Upper Palaeolithic
  • The Upper Palaeolithic period is characterized by more advanced tools, including blade technology, and it dates from around 50,000 to 10,000 years ago.
  • This period saw the development of art, such as cave paintings and carvings, and more complex social structures.
• Middle Palaeolithic
  • The Middle Palaeolithic period, dating from about 300,000 to 50,000 years ago, is noted for the development of the Levallois technique, which allowed for more controlled flaking of stone tools.
  • It is associated with Neanderthals and early modern humans.
• Mesolithic
  • The Mesolithic period, or Middle Stone Age, spans from around 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, and is characterized by microlithic tools, which are small, often composite tools.
  • This period marks the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to more settled agricultural communities.

Hence, the correct answer is 'Lower Palaeolithic'.

Additional Information

• Abbevillian Industry:
  • Named after the site of Abbeville in France, where such tools were first discovered.
  • Characterized by large, crude handaxes and cleavers, typically made from flint or other hard stones.
  • Represents some of the earliest forms of tool-making by hominins.
• Significance of the Lower Palaeolithic:
  • This period marks the beginning of human technological and cultural evolution.
  • The development of tools during this period allowed early humans to better interact with their environment, hunt, and gather food more efficiently.

The correct answer is 'A, B, C, and D'

Key Points

• Animal Domestication in the Paleolithic Era:
  • The Paleolithic era, also known as the Old Stone Age, spans from approximately 2.5 million years ago to around 10,000 BCE.
  • During this period, humans primarily relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering for subsistence.
  • Domestication of animals began towards the end of the Paleolithic era, particularly in the Upper Paleolithic.
  • Evidence of early domesticated animals has been found in archaeological sites, including the Belan valley in India.
  • While hunting remained a dominant subsistence strategy, the domestication of animals like sheep and goats marked a significant shift in human practices.

Additional Information

Animal domestication is the process by which humans have modified wild animals over generations to create species and breeds that are more closely integrated into human life, providing various forms of labor, companionship, food, clothing, and other resources. This process involves selective breeding, taming, and managing animal populations to enhance traits that are beneficial to humans.

Key Stages and Processes

• Taming:
  • Initial interaction where wild animals are habituated to human presence and control, often through conditioning and gradual reduction of their fear response.
• Selective Breeding:
  • Deliberate breeding for desirable traits such as docility, productivity (e.g., milk, meat, wool), particular behavioral characteristics, size, and ease of maintenance.
• Tracking Reproductive Control:
  • Managing breeding practices to ensure that the animals reproduce under controlled conditions, thus promoting and perpetuating desirable traits.
• Establishment of Dependent Populations:
  • Creating populations of animals that rely on humans for food, shelter, and protection from predators, ensuring the survival and continuation of domesticated traits.

The correct answer is 'To find food and water'

Key Points

• To find food and water:
  • Hunter-gatherers were nomadic people who moved from place to place primarily in search of food and water.
  • They relied on the natural availability of resources, such as wild animals, fish, fruits, nuts, and other edible plants.
  • The movement was essential for survival as it allowed them to exploit different resources in different areas, especially as seasons changed and resources became scarce in one location.
  • This nomadic lifestyle ensured a sustainable way of living by preventing the depletion of resources in a single area.

Additional Information

• To avoid taxes:
  • This option is incorrect because hunter-gatherer societies existed long before the establishment of formal governments and taxation systems.
  • Taxes are a feature of more advanced, settled societies with structured economies and governance, not of nomadic hunter-gatherer communities.
• To find new entertainment:
  • This option is incorrect as the primary concern of hunter-gatherers was survival, not entertainment.
  • While social and cultural activities were part of their lives, these were not the driving factors for their movement.
• To build new settlements:
  • This option is incorrect because hunter-gatherers did not build permanent settlements.
  • They were nomadic and lived in temporary shelters, moving frequently to follow the availability of food and water.

Inamgaon​:

• Inamgaon is situated near the Ghod river, a tributary of the river Bhima in Maharashtra.
• Inamgaon is the post-Harappan archaeological site in Maharashtra.
• Usually, adults were buried at this site. The dead body was laid straight; with the head facing towards north.
• Remains of wheat, barley, lentils, millets and sesame have been found from the Inamgaon site.
• The Subarnarekha River flows through the Indian states of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha. 
• Mahi river rises in Madhya Pradesh and flows into the Arabian Sea after flowing through the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat.
• It is the river that crosses the tropic of cancer twice.
• The Penna river rises in the Nandi Hills in Karnataka and runs through the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

Hallur

• It is situated in Andhra Pradesh and is a Neolithic site. 

• The last phase of the Stone Age is called the Neolithic Age. This phase began about 10,000 years ago. This phase marks a significant change in the life of humans because this is the period when man began farming.

• The tools of the Neolithic Age were much smaller and more refined. Stone was given better shape and some tools were fitted with handles, e.g. spears, axe, sickles, arrows, etc.

Bhimbetka

• The caves of Bhimbetka were discovered in 1957–58 by eminent archaeologist V.S.Wakankar.
• The drawings and paintings can be categorized into seven historical periods. Period I, Upper Palaeolithic; Period II, Mesolithic; and Period III, Chalcolithic. After Period III, there are four successive periods.

Burzahom ​

• The Burzahom is a Neolithic site archaeological site is located in Jammu and Kashmir.

• Archaeological excavations revealed four historically important phases between 3000 BC and 1000 BC.
• The site of Burzahom demonstrated the transition from the subterranean and ground-level housing features of the Neolithic to the mudbrick structures of the Megalithic People.
• The first excavation was an exercise in 1936 at the Burzahom site.
• This site was designated for listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 15 April 2014.

The correct answer is Forests and hills in the northeast.

Key Points

• Dispersed or scattered settlements
  • Dispersed Settlements Dispersed or isolated settlement pattern in India appears in the form of isolated huts or hamlets of few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on the slopes.
  • Extreme dispersion of settlement is often caused by the extremely fragmented nature of the terrain and land resource base of habitable areas.
  • Many areas of Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Kerala have this type of settlement.
  • Villages having dispersed or scattered settlements have farmstead scattered over a much wider area.
  • It reflects poor hydrology and land capability.
  • The number of houses per unit area in these types of settlements is very low and there is a wide gap between the houses.
  • Such Rural Settlements are the characteristics of deserts/semi-arid land with poor land capability or regions affected by natural hazards.
  • Such villages are common in:
    • Areas of extreme climate
    • Hilly tracts, Hence, Option 4 is correct.
    • Deserts
    • Thick forests
    • Grasslands
    • Areas of extensive agriculture.
    • Poor agriculture land
  • Areas where farmers need to live on agricultural land rather than distant village settlement
  • The dispersed Rural Settlements are usually of recent age since people are moving away from dense settlements in the search of new spaces.
  • With the development of technology, people have found a way to live in deserts also.
  • Semi-desert regions of Rajasthan, forest lands of North East India, Shiwaliks, Jammu, and Kashmir, and parts of Peninsular India also have dispersed types of settlements.
  • The Western Ghats in the rain shadow area, Leh-Ladhak, Kutchh, and Western Rajasthan has dispersed settlement types

• Arun Sonakia discovered South Asia's first ancient human remains at a place called Hathnora in the Narmada Valley in 1982.
• Narmada Human (Palaeolithic man), initially named Narmada Man, belongs to the category of Homo erectus. It is dated to the late Pleistocene period.
• Homo erectus is believed to have inhabited the planet 1.8 million to 200,000 years ago.
• Late Acheulian tools have been found at Hathnora. The stone tools are as old as 800,000 years and as young as 10,000 years, spanning a large swathe of the stone-age have been discovered from Hathnora.

• Adamgarh is a prehistoric site in the Lower Tawa basin at Hoshangabad. It is a painted rock shelter site contains paintings of the Prehistoric period, done in red and white colours. Few shelters were excavated and remain from the Palaeolithic period to historical period were observed.
• Baghor is a palaeolithic site located at Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh. The excavation revealed in-situ remains of macro and micro blades, large scalene Triangles and borers etc. A small artificial stone structure uncovered in the excavation has been described as a shrine.
• Didwana is located in the Nagaur district of Rajasthan. Didwana houses about 301 hand axes dating back to the Middle Pleistocene period. It is believed to be dating back to early Acheulian and very late Acheulian or even early middle Palaeolithic.

Inamgaon

• It is a site on the river Ghod, a tributary of the Bhima. It was occupied between 3600 and 2700 years ago.
• Here, adults were generally buried in the ground, laid out straight, with the head towards the north. Sometimes burials were within the houses.
• Vessels that probably contained food and water were placed with the dead.
• One man was found buried in a large, four-legged clay jar in the courtyard of a five-roomed house (one of the largest houses at the site), in the centre of the settlement.
• This house also had a granary. The body was placed in a cross-legged position.

​

Occupations at Inamgaon

• Archaeologists have found seeds of wheat, barley, rice, pulses, millets, peas and sesame.
• Bones of a number of animals, many bearing cut marks that show they may have been used as food, have also been found.
• These include cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep, dog, horse, ass, pig, sambhar, spotted deer, blackbuck, antelope, hare, and mongoose, besides birds, crocodile, turtle, crab and fish. There is evidence that fruits such as ber, amla, jamun, dates and a variety of berries were collected.

• Cave paintings dating back to approximately 30,000 years. Rock shelters that were home to humans, millennia ago. And a rich flora and fauna surrounding these, indeed, make Bhimbetka a gift to us from our earliest ancestors. The Bhimbetka Rock Shelter has the oldest-known rock art in India, as well as is one of the largest prehistoric complexes to be seen. 
• An archaeological treasure, Bhimbetka has around 243 rock shelters and have earned the honour of UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• These hill ranges are full of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic remains, and they are also full of forests, wild plants, fruits, streams and creeks, thus a perfect place for Stone Age people to live.
• These are having about eight hundred rock shelters, five hundred of which bear paintings. The caves of Bhimbetka were discovered in 1957–58 by eminent archaeologist V.S. Wakankar and later on many more were discovered.
• The themes of paintings found here are of great variety, ranging from mundane events of daily life in those times to sacred and royal images. These include hunting, dancing, music, horse and elephant riders, animal fighting, honey collection, decoration of bodies, and other household scenes.
• The rock art of Bhimbetka has been classified into various groups on the bases of style, technique and superimposition. The drawings and paintings can be categorised into seven historical periods.
• Period I, Upper Palaeolithic; Period II, Mesolithic; and Period III, Chalcolithic. After Period III there are four successive periods. 
• NOTE- We have marked option 1 as the Correct answer. Because paintings from the Palaeolithic period are also found here. Hence, it is the most suited answer. 

​

Upper Palaeolithic Period Paintings

• The paintings of the Upper Palaeolithic phase are linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge animal figures, such as bisons, elephants, tigers, rhinos and boars besides stick-like human figures.
• A few are wash paintings but mostly they are filled with geometric patterns. The green paintings are of dancers and the red ones of hunters.

• During prehistoric times people lived at the following places in the Indian subcontinent.
• People have lived along the banks of this river for several hundred thousand years. Some of the earliest people who lived here were skilled gatherers, — that is, people who gathered their food. They knew about the vast wealth of plants in the surrounding forests, and collected roots, fruits and other forest produce for their food. They also hunted animals.
• Sulaiman and Kirthar hills of the areas where women and men first began to grow crops such as wheat and barley about 8000 years ago. People also began rearing animals like sheep, goat, and cattle, and lived in villages.

​

The term Palaeolithic Culture is assigned to the cultural material collected from Pliocene to the entire period of Pleistocene.

The tool types and cultural stages of the Paleolithic period are designated as:

Lower Palaeolithic Culture: the tool assemblage consists of pebble tools (chopper-chopping tools), handaxes and cleavers.

Middle Palaeolithic Culture: the tool assemblage consists of flake tools (awls, points and side scrapers).

Upper Palaeolithic Culture: the tool assemblage consists of blades and bone tools (backed blade, knives, burins and end scrapers).

Attirampakkam

• The archaeological site at Attirampakkam near Chennai is developed a Middle Palaeolithic culture phase around 3,85,000 years ago.
• It is significant for the presence of fossil remains, rare at Indian Palaeolithic sites, and Acheulian artefacts in association with animal footprints.
• The Middle Palaeolithic is an important cultural phase, associated as it is globally with both modern humans and Neanderthals or other archaic hominins, with complex histories of interaction, cultural transitions and change, and dispersals.
• Old stone artefacts of 1.5-million-year-old have been discovered belonging to the Acheulian of the Lower Palaeolithic (Acheulian) culture from Attirampakkam.
• At Attirampakkam, during the Middle Palaeolithic, there is a distinct shift away from large flake technologies such as handaxes and cleavers that were predominant during the Acheulian. There is a proliferation of tools made from small flakes during the Middle Palaeolithic.
• The Middle Palaeolithic at Attirampakkam shows two phases. Phase I shows a few archaic tools reflecting of Acheulian technologies along with new tool types and technologies indicating a cultural transition. Phase II shows a proliferation of Middle Palaeolithic stone tools, marking a distinct evolution in Middle Palaeolithic technological strategies.

Extra info-

Acheulian tools

Acheulean stone tools - named after the site of St. Acheul on the Somme River in France where artifacts from this tradition were first discovered in 1847. Acheulean stone tools are the products of Homo erectus. The most characteristic Acheulean tools are termed hand axes and cleavers. The Acheulean tradition constituted a veritable revolution in stone-age technology.

A fossilized human baby skull in 2001, recovered from Odai in Bommayarpalayam in Tamil Nadu.

It has been found to be 1.66 lakh years old, making it the second oldest human fossil in India.

Baby skull from Odai belonged to Homo Sapiens of the middle Pleistocene period.

Note-

The oldest human fossil was found from Hathanora in the Naramada river bed in Madhya Pradesh in 1982.

Extra info-

Pleistocene time period spanned from 1.8 million to ~10,000 years ago. Pleistocene biotas were extremely close to modern ones — many genera and even species of Pleistocene conifers, mosses, flowering plants, insects, mollusks, birds, mammals, and others survive to this day.

It was during the Pleistocene that the most recent episodes of global cooling, or ice ages, took place. Much of the world's temperate zones were alternately covered by glaciers during cool periods and uncovered during the warmer interglacial periods when the glaciers retreated.

The Pleistocene also saw the evolution and expansion of our own species, Homo sapiens, and by the close of the Pleistocene, humans had spread through most of the world. 

The correct answer is Forests and hills in the northeast.

Key Points

Dispersed or scattered settlements 

• Dispersed Settlements Dispersed or isolated settlement pattern in India appears in the form of isolated huts or hamlets of few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on the slopes.
• Extreme dispersion of settlement is often caused by the extremely fragmented nature of the terrain and land resource base of habitable areas.
• Many areas of Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Kerala have this type of settlement.
• Villages having dispersed or scattered settlements have farmstead scattered over a much wider area.
• It reflects poor hydrology and land capability.
• The number of houses per unit area in these types of settlements is very low and there is a wide gap between the houses.
• Such Rural Settlements are the characteristics of deserts/semi-arid land with poor land capability or regions affected by natural hazards.
• Such villages are common in:
  • Areas of extreme climate
  • Hilly tracts, Hence, Option 4 is correct.
  • Deserts
  • Thick forests
  • Grasslands
  • Areas of extensive agriculture.
  • Poor agriculture land
• Areas where farmers need to live on agricultural land rather than distant village settlement
• The dispersed Rural Settlements are usually of recent age since people are moving away from dense settlements in the search of new spaces.
• With the development of technology, people have found a way to live in deserts also.
• Semi-desert regions of Rajasthan, forest lands of North East India, Shiwaliks, Jammu, and Kashmir, and parts of Peninsular India also have dispersed types of settlements.
• The Western Ghats in the rain shadow area, Leh-Ladhak, Kutchh, and Western Rajasthan has dispersed settlement types

The correct answer is Borer-burin.Key Points

• In the 1973 book, India: An Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic, A.K. Ghosh divided the Paleolithic culture complex of India into three basic chronocultural elements:
  • ​The Lower Paleolithic, which is characterized by pebble tools and choppers.
  • The Middle Paleolithic, which is characterized by hand axes and cleavers.
  • The Upper Paleolithic, which is characterized by blade tools and points.
• Borer-burins are not found in any of these three periods.
• They are a type of tool that is more characteristic of the Mesolithic period, which is the period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.
• Ghosh's argument is based on the fact that borer-burins have not been found in any of the Paleolithic sites that have been excavated in India.
• He also argues that the raw materials used to make borer-burins are not found in India and that the technology used to make them is more advanced than the technology used to make Paleolithic tools.
• Ghosh's argument has been challenged by some archaeologists, who argue that borer-burins may have been present in India during the Paleolithic period, but that they have not been recognized as such because they were not properly excavated or analyzed.
• However, the majority of archaeologists agree with Ghosh's assessment that borer-burins are not a chrono-cultural element of the Paleolithic culture complex in India.

Additional Information

•  A pebble core is a type of stone tool that was created by striking flakes from a pebble.
• Pebble-cores were used during the early Stone Age, and they were often used to make simple tools such as choppers and scrapers.
• A flake is a piece of stone that has been detached from a core by striking it with a hammerstone or other hard object.
• Flakes were used to make a variety of tools during the Stone Age, including knives, arrowheads, and spearheads.
• A flake-blade is a type of flake that is longer and thinner than a regular flake.
• Flake blades were often used to make specialized tools such as saws and drills.
• Pebble cores, flakes, and flake blades are all important types of stone tools that were used by early humans.
• These tools played a vital role in the development of human technology and culture.