1.

Different sources to reconstruct the ancient social structure

Epigraphy

- Study of inscriptions.
- Most reliable sources of ancient history.
- Inscriptions are engraved on stone tablets, metal plates, pillars, walls of caves, etc.
- They represent various languages at different places and period of time.
- Some give details about the political and religious activities of that time. Others are official,
commemorative and historical.
- Examples of religious and administrative inscriptions
a) The edicts of Asoka
b) the pillars of Samudragupta and Rudradaman I
- Inscriptions of metal plates
a) The Mandasor copper plates
b) the Sohgaura plate from Gorakhpur district
c) the Aihole inscription of ahendra-Varman,
d) the Uttiramerur inscriptions of Cholas cast light on trade, taxes and currency.

Some of these metal plate inscriptions reflect on the social condition of India. Give
knowledge about boundaries of kingdom and empire.
- Epigraphy throws light on the life lived in the past, nature of society and economy and the
general state of life.

Numismatics

- Study of coins.
- Coins made of gold, silver and copper speak of the economic situation of that period as well as
some chronological issues.
- Gave info about the extent of influence of particular rulers or kingdom and its relations with the
distant areas.

Archaeology

- Study of the material remains of the past.

- It includes buildings, monuments and other material relics
- Lord Curzon under the Director Generalship of Dr. Marshall set up the Dept of Archaeology.

Literature

- Literature in the ancient period was a compilation of experiences and rules of worship.
- Literature includes the Vedas, the Brahmanas, the Upanishads, the epics Ramayana and
Mahabharata, the Puranas.
 2. Rig Veda as a Textual source

- Rig-veda is one of the most important ones, as it is the earliest of the textual sources.
- Rig-veda is dated roughly to 1500-1000 BC.
- Rig-veda is not like the Arthasastra or the Puranas.
- The text is compiled in the ‘vedic’ language that predates Sanskrit.
- It is a compilation of 1028 suktas/hymns that panegyrize the gods.
- It is not a religious text alone.
- It is a collection of a composition of hymns serving useful purposes.
- It provides us with a glimpse of one segment of culture that was pastoral.

UNIT 2
3. Social structure of Hunting-gathering societies.

- Palaeolithic age (roughly 2.5 million years ago till about 10,000 B.C) means old stone
age. (palaeo means old and lithic comes from greek word lithos which means stone.)
- The Palaeolithic age is further divided into lower, middle and upper phases based on the
types of stone tools used and the techniques for making them.

- Lower palaeolithic age is roughly dated from 1.9 million years ago.
- identified by the presence of two types of tools: the chopper-chopping tools and the
handaxes.
- concentrates on quartzite as the raw material.

- Middle palaeolithic from about 80,000 years ago.

- identified by flake industries and the preferred tools were scrapers.
- more fine-grained stones, such as jasper and varieties of chert, were preferred.

- Upper palaeolithic from 40, 000 till 10, 000 years BC.
- A blade and burin tradition marks the upper palaeolithic age.
- bone was used for making tools.

Palaeolithic stone tools are found in several contexts: habitation sites in rock shelters or in the
open; factory sites near sources of raw material where tools were made; habitation sites cum
factory sites; or scatters of tools. Another body of evidence from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic
is the art found in the form of rock engravings, rock bruisings and as paintings on walls of caves
and rock shelters.
Stone age – Palaeolithic period,
Mesolithic period and Neolithic
period (New stone age).

Bronze Age

Iron Age
Social structure

- Information on social structures can be inferred with help from anthropological or

ethnographic data from living hunting-gathering societies.
- According to Elman Service and Marshall D Sahlins hunting-gathering societies are
essentially at the band level of social organisation. The term band is used to signify very
small groups (20-50 persons) with a flexible membership.
- Family is the essential unit of production with foraging (search for food) activities
performed by the nuclear family within the band’s range.
- Most activities (like collecting, fishing, foraging) are performed at the family level, while
hunting of large game could have involved a group of males from several families and/or
from a different band.
- Hunting-gathering societies are solely dependent on wild plants and animals.
- Whatever was collected/ hunted would have been according to need and consumed
immediately there was no likelihood of storage or surplus.
- Camps would have had to frequently shift in response to the availability of both plant and
animal resources. The frequent mobility of bands also ensured that population remained
low; in fact, families deliberately limited their numbers.
- Band level societies are essentially egalitarian (equality for all people), with only two
kinds of social units comprising of families and bands of related families.
- There is no formal, permanent or hereditary leadership.
- Ritually, there may have been totemistic beliefs. A totem could be a plant or animal or
inanimate object that was protected and revered.

4. Social structure of early food producing farming and herding) societies.

(Neolithic) & Archaeological evidence for early food producing villages
& campsites.

Mesolithic is a stage transitional between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, falling between
hunting gathering and food producing societies.

- Neolithic Age is known as New stone age, the final division of the stone age.
- Introduction to farming, domestication of animals, change from hunter-gatherer lifestyle
to that of settlement.

Archaeological evidences
- The important site for the Neolithic is Mehrgarh in Baluchistan in Pakistan.
- Location of this site in the fertile Kachi Plain, known as the ‘bread basket’of Baluchistan,
is particularly significant.
- The site is located on the bank of the Bolan River nd lies at the foot of the Bolan Pass
perhaps an important route linking the northern and western valleys with the Indus Plains.
- With a very long history of occupation, Mehrgarh is recorded by archaeologists as having
eight cultural levels, of which the first two, Period I and II were Neolithic.
- Period I is aceramic (without pottery) while pottery appears in Period II at the site.
- Earliest settlement may go back to 7000 B.C.
- mudbricks were used for constructing the groups of 2-4 small rectangular rooms that may
have been houses. These were associated with fireplaces.
- There is evidence for the crafts of bone and stone tool making. Another feature is the
setting of multiple blades in bitumen on a bone or wood handle, to be used as sickles for
the cutting of plants.
- Burials in period I indicate early beliefs regarding the disposal of the dead. Items
deposited with the dead: ornaments, made of materials of which some came from distant
areas, such as marine shell, bitumen-lined baskets and food, including whole young
goats.
- In Period II, structures with numerous compartments were constructed. Some of these
were of two rows of cells separated by a central corridor or passage. These kinds of
structures may have been used as storehouses or granaries.
- Mehrgarh is a valuable site for the Neolithic because of the evidence for domestication.
- Plant remains are found in the form of impressions, particularly in brick, and as burnt
specimens. Largely these were of wheat and barley.
- The evidence of domesticated species may represent the importance of herding in the
Neolithic economy.
- Another Neolithic sites have been found in Burzahom, Kashmir.
- At Burzahom, early Neolithic (dated around 3000 BC) dwellings were in the form of pits
of varying depths.
- Cooking may have been done both inside and outside the pits as seen by the evidence for
hearths. The suggestion is that the pits were mainly used as dwellings in the cold weather.
- Apart from Neolithic ground stone axes, bone tools were also used. Crude handmade
pottery was also found.
- In the later Neolithic at Burzahom, the pit dwellings were given up and structures of mud
or mud bricks were made.
- Other interesting details from the later Neolithic are animal burials (of wild dogs) found
along with those of humans. The use of red ochre in the burials and in other parts of the
settlement has also been noted.
- A dependence on cattle-keeping may also have been a feature of the South Indian
Neolithic.
- Pottery is found throughout the Neolithic period.

Social Structure
- It is a tribal society.
- It comprise larger numbers (100 onwards) of people held together by kinship relations,
lineages, common ancestors and joint ownership of and equal access to resources, by
descent groups.
- A tribe is composed of a number of clans, which in turn comprises of different
lineages/descent groups.
- The smallest social unit is the extended family, not the nuclear family.
- Essentially egalitarian, there is little social stratification.
- Kinship relations not only govern most aspects of society, but also function as integrative
mechanisms.
- Marriages between descent groups, bringing about alliances, act as forces of cohesion.
- Another integrative force at the tribal level would have been pan-tribal associations, some
of which cut across kinship ties.
- Inter-tribal warfare is chronic in tribal societies, and is never conclusive.
- Warfare in the form of raids or ambushes, aims at the capture of booty and the prevention
of encroachment into favoured areas.
- Tribal leadership (Big Man) depends on personal charisma or qualities of individuals and
is not permanent. There is no real power attached to this office; the role of a Big Man is
as an advisor.
- Kinship relations also prevent the misuse of the position of a big Man.
- Ancestor worship as forming part of religious beliefs assumes importance in the tribal
level of society. It involves the worship of immediate (at family level) and more remote
(at the level of clan) ancestors. Ancestors are considered responsible for the well being of
the members of society. There were sacrifices and ritual exchanges for ancestors.
- Shamans occupy an important position in society.

UNIT 3

- Bronze Age, a term used by V. Gordon Childe, should be seen not merely as a
technological stage, but as one marked by a particular social form, that takes shape within
an urban context and has features of a state society.
- the Bronze Age is noted for a far more regular use of copper/bronze tools.

- The term chalcolithic would refer to food producing societies at the tribal level of social
organization.
- Stone was used far more than metal for the major cutting tools in the chalcolithic.