Early people began domesticating plants and animals around 12,000 years ago. They started looking after edible plants and taming animals by providing them with food. Over time, this led people to adopt a settled lifestyle, growing crops like wheat and barley and raising domesticated animals like dogs, goats and sheep. They stored food grains for future use and lived together in small tribal communities, with families of two or three generations residing in settlements.

1. Chapter IIIChapter III
FROM GATHERING
TO GROWING FOOD

2. BEGINNING OF FARMING &
HERDING
•Early people found places, where
edible plants grew and they began
looking after plants.
• They tamed animals by giving them
food and reared them.
• Slowly they began leading a settled
life.

3. DOMESTICATION
•Domestication is the process
in which people grow crops
and look after animals.
•It began 12000 years ago.
•The earliest domesticated
animals include Dog, goat
and sheep.
• The earliest plants to be
domesticated were wheat and
barley.

4. Storing of food grains
Purposeof storage– food&seed
Storedinclaypots, baskets &pits inground
Rearedanimals usedas storeof food(milk,meat)

5. TOWARDS A SETTLED LIFE
•People lived in huts/ pit houses.
•Polished tools were used(fine cutting edge/
•mortars & pestles for grinding grains)
•Use of earthen pots – cooking
•Weaving clothes(cotton)

6. PIT HOUSES
POLISHED TOOLS
EARTHEN POTS

7. Tribes
•Two or three generations live together in
small settlements.
•And they are related to one another.
•Farmers & herders lived in groups called
tribes
Burial
Burials are big pits used to bury the body
of a dead person
Entertainment
Music , dancing & painting
Religious belief
Worship number of God & Goddesses.

8. Burials
Burials are big pits used to bury the body of a dead
person. In some places along with the dead body goats
and other animals were buried.

9. •This place is situated in a fertile plain, near the
Bolan pass.
• Mehrgarh was probably one of the places,
where women and men learnt to cultivate rice
and barley and rear goats for the first time.
•People lived in square or rectangular houses
with four or more compartments
•They believed in life after death, hence burial
was practised.
Mehrgarh - A CASE STUDY

10. Mehrgarh
square or rectangular houses