'The Antecedents 'is the 3rd chapter of Romila Thapar's master piece 'A History of Ancient India' Vol-1.It conveys the reader about the beginning of human history in India from the Paleolithic Age .

3. Romila Thapar (born 30 November, 1930---) is an outstanding
scholar and Historian in contemporary India. She did her
Doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies,
London University in 1958.Till date she has been the recipient
of six honorary Doctorate Degrees from six highly esteemed
Universities of the World. She refused the Padma Bhusan
award twice. At present she is a Professor Emeritus at JNU.
She is known as a controversial Historian. She is 86+ now.
Amongst her unnumbered writings one cannot help
remembering the names of Aśoka and the Decline of the
Mauryas; Ancient Indian Social History, Some
Interpretations; Recent Perspectives of Early Indian
History (editor); A History of India Volume One, and Early
India: From the Origins to AD 1300.

4. THE ANTECEDENTS
 ‘The Antecedents’ is the title of the 3rd Chapter in
her controversial Book on Indian ancient
History .
 Cambridge Dictionary defines the term as
someone or something existing or happening
before, especially as the cause or origin of
something existing or happening later.
 Romila Thapar wanted to mean ‘Past History’ or
Background by the term.
 The opposite of Antecedents is Postcedents.

5. THE ANTECEDENTS
-
 Writing History or Keeping records of the past’ is a western
concept.
 India did not practice writing down History.
 Writing History in India began in the late 17th & early 18th
century although it is a land of 5000 years of continuous
culture.
 East India Company officers started writing down Indian
History with the help of elite Brahmins.
 Indian History is elitist in nature.
 Indian History does not tell the story of the common people.
 The first book on Indian History entitled ‘History of British India’ was
published by James Mill in 1817.

6. THE ANTECEDENTS
 According to Thapar human beings did not originate
in south Africa alone.
 Evolution of Homo Sapiens (Human being) began
approximately 50,000 years ago in the Asian sub-
continent also.
 Contrarily the initial homo sapiens migrated from
east Africa to Indian peninsula for easier life.
 They settled in the Sind and Gangetic plains.
 Thapar mapped various stages of Human
civilizations in Indian soil in her book.
 The stages are Paleolithic; Calcolithic ;Neolithic

7. THE ANTECEDENTS
 The history and identity of human settlements in India goes
back to prehistoric times, when there was a gradual spread
from the sporadic settlements of the old stone age to the more
densely distributed habitations of later stone ages, followed by
the even later societies of a more complex kind. The question
of the identity of the earliest settlers is linked to the evolution
and early history of homo sapiens and their dispersal from
Africa. The earlier geological conditions assume that the
Indian subcontinent was linked to east Africa in remote times.

8. THE ANTECEDENTS
 The tracks can be traced through the recognized patterns of
the settlements and cultures that have been labelled as the
palaeolithic, mesolithic, neolithic,chalcolithic and iron ages.
 Not all societies evolved from one to the next in a series, nor
were they uniform in time throughout the subcontinent.
 A brief survey of what has come to be called pre-history and
proto-history provides the antecedents to the earliest history.
 Archaeological data is in the form of tangible, material
remains. This becomes the basis for calculating chronology.
 Methods of dating have undergone impressive improvements
in the last half-century and are among the many areas of
archaeology in which modern scientific techniques have made
enormous contributions. For many very early periods there
are methods such as spectrometric dating, or measuring
potassium or radioactive decay, for arriving at an early date.

9. THE ANTECEDENTS
 For periods of the last 10,000 years, the three
most commonly used techniques are radio-
carbon dating (Carbon-14), based on
measuring the loss of carbon in organic
material; dendro-chronology, which refers to
the number of tree rings in wood; and
thermoluminescence (TL), which can be
applied to artefacts of particular materials that
have been put through fire, such as pottery.

10. THE ANTECEDENTS
 Terms such as culture and civilization, when used in an
archaeological context, have a somewhat different meaning
from their general use.
 Culture refers to the pattern of life of a society, so there are
multiple kinds of cultures.
 Such patterns would include the use made of the habitual
environment, social relations, language and ritual.
 Typologies of cultures were earlier made on the basis of the
tools used by human groups.
 These were largely of stone, changing from the older and
larger tools of the palaeolithic to the smaller ones of the
mesolithic, and the polished ones of the neolithic, to the use
of both stone and metal in the chalcolithic.
 Tool typologies are sometimes added to or substituted by
types of pottery (when it comes into use), characteristic of
certain kinds of settlements.
 The pottery label is used to identify the people who made it

11. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION
The term ‘culture’ is a
Latin origin of the world
‘cultus’, which refers to
cultivating or refining
something, in such a way
that it provides admiration
and respect.
Civilization is described as a process
of civilizing or say developing the
state of human society, to the
extent that the culture, industry,
technology, government, etc.
reaches the maximum level. The
term ‘civilization’ is derived from
a Latin term ‘civis’ which
indicates ‘someone who resides
in a town’.
The following points are noteworthy, so far as the difference between culture
and civilization is concerned:
The term ‘culture’ refers to the embodiment of the manner in which we think,
behave and act. On the contrary, the improved stage of human society, where
members have the considerable amount of social and political organisation and
development, is called Civilization.
Our culture describes what we are, but our civilization explains what we have or
what we make use of.
Culture is an end; it has no measurement standards. As against this, civilization
has precise measurement standards, because it is a means.

12. CIVILIZATION & CULTURE
 The culture of a particular region can be reflected in religion, art, dance,
literature, customs, morals, music, philosophy, etc.
 On the other hand, the civilization is exhibited in the law, administration,
infrastructure, architecture, social arrangement, etc. of that area.
 Culture denote the greatest level of inner refinement, and so it is internal.
 Unlike, civilization which is external, i.e. it is the expression of state of the
art technology, product, devices, infrastructure and so forth.
 Change in culture is observed with time, as in the old thoughts and
traditions lost with the passage of time and new ones are added to it which
are then transmitted from one generation to another.
 On the flip side, civilization is continuously advancing, i.e. the various
elements of civilization like means of transportation, communication, etc.
are developing day by day.
 Culture can evolve and flourish, even if the civilization does not exist.
 In contrast, civilization cannot grow and exist without culture.
 May Read more: http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-culture-and-
civilization.html#ixzz4WEaMdk7h

13. CULTURE(S)
 Labels such as hunter-gatherers, cattle-keepers
and early farming communities are also used,
since they are more descriptive.
 Similarities in cultures do not necessarily indicate
that they evolved from the same people.
 Patterns of life and the artifacts that go with them
can take similar forms, even if those who make
them are unconnected.
 But where there are connections, similarities have
to be differentiated from imitations

14. CIVILIZATION
 Civilization implies a pattern that is thought of as
more complex and sophisticated, incorporating urban
living and all that it connotes, a conscious aesthetic
awareness, sophisticated religious beliefs and the use
of texts.
 City societies are stratified and the wider context is
the state, with its unequal social divisions.
 Ruling groups need not be based on kin connections.
 A civilization can cover a wide area, recognized by
the similarity of artifacts, and its extent often arises
from the interdependence of peoples who are affected
by its systems in various ways.

15. PALEOLITHIC AGE

16. PALEOLITHIC SHELTER CAVE PAINTING IN TAPTI
VALLEY IN CENTRAL INDIA

17. PALEOLITHIC AGE

18. PALEOLITHIC OR OLD STONE AGE
18
From about 2 million B.C to 10000 B.C

19. PALEOLITHIC OR OLD STONE AGE

20. PALEOLITHIC AGE

21. Bhimbetka.
Patne ostrich shell.
Baghor I, upper paleolithic site. In the middle of a circular platform made of sandstone
rubble, a rock with concentric
triangles painted in light yellowish red to dark reddish brown have been found.
Religion
In the auditorium cave of Bhimbetka, one rock with 7 cup engravings and another rock
with one single large cup mark along with a meandering line has been found. One
explanation is that it was used as a gong in some kind of ritual. Time period is lower -
middle paleolithic.
Baghor I in MP from upper paleolithic. In the middle of a circular platform made of
sandstone rubble, a rock with concentric
triangles painted in light yellowish red to dark reddish brown have been found. This
indicates pagan worship. The pieces of the rock when joined together form a triangle
itself.
Community Life
They lived in more or less permanent homes. This indicates sufficiency of food and other
resources. Their houses were made of stone, grass, wood, leaves etc. There were some
sites which served as temporary habitation only - people came, lived for a certain part of
an year and went away. Some sites were connected to specific activities.
Their social organization was "band based" i.e. they were organized in a small group
which moved together. There was division of labor based on age and sex. There were no
formal institutions, no chiefs etc. No one had a superior claim on the resources.
Paleolithic Sites in India

26. MESOLITHIC AGE

29. NEOLITHIC AGE

30. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PALEOLITHIC &
NEOLITHIC AGE.

31. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PALEOLITHIC &
NEOLITHIC AGE

32. CHALCOLITHIC AGE

33. CHALCOLITHIC AGE
 By the end of the Neolithic period, a full-fledged
civilization was developed in
the Indus and Saraswati valleys in the northern
part of India.
 A completely different kind of culture known as
Chalcolithic Culture was developed in central
India and Deccan region.
 They, however, never reached the level of
urbanization in spite they were using metal.
 They were contemporary of the Harappan culture,
but some other were of later Harappan age.

35. COMMON FEATURES






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 Common Features of Calcolithic age-
 The people of Chalcolithic culture had used unique
painted earthenware usually black-on-red.
 They used specialized blade and flake industry of
the siliceous material like chalcedony and chert.
However, the use of copper and bronze tools also
evidenced on a limited scale.
 The Economy was largely based on subsistence
agriculture, stock-raising, hunting, and fishing.
 Painted pottery is the most distinguishing feature
of all Chalcolithic cultures.
 The Kayatha culture is distinguished by a sturdy
red-slipped ware painted with designs in chocolate
color, a red painted buff ware, and a combed ware
bearing incised patterns.
 The Ahar people made a unique black-and-red
ware decorated with the white designs.
 The Prabhas and Rangpur wares both were
derived from Harappan culture and are called
Lustrous Red Ware because of their glossy surface.
 The Malwa ware is slightly coarse in fabric, but
has a thick buff surface over which designs were
made either in red or black.
 Jorwe ware is painted black-on-red and has a matt
surface treated with a wash.

36. CHALCOLITHIC LIFE-STYLE

37. MEGALITHIC BURIALS
Kudakkallu Parambu is a prehistoric Megalithic burial site located in the village
of Chermanangad, 20km away from Thrissur, Kerala, India. The site have 69
megalithic monuments spread over a small area.

38. THE FIRST URBANIZATION - THE CITIES
OF THE INDUS CIVILIZATION
 The Indus Valley Civilization was
an ancient civilization located in
what is Pakistan and
northwest India today, on the
fertile flood plain of the Indus
River and its vicinity. Evidence of
religious practices in this area date
back approximately to 5500 BCE.
Farming settlements began around
4000 BCE and around 3000 BCE
there appeared the first signs
of urbanization. By 2600 BCE,
dozens of towns and cities had been
established, and between 2500 and
2000 BCE the Indus
Valley Civilization was at its peak.

39. THE FIRST URBANIZATION - THE CITIES
OF THE INDUS CIVILIZATION

40. THE LIFE OF THE INDUS VALLEY
CIVILIZATION
 Two cities, in particular, have been excavated at the sites of Mohenjo-Daro on the lower Indus, and
at Harappa, further upstream.
 The evidence suggests they had a highly developed city life; many houses had wells and bathrooms
as well as an elaborate underground drainage system.
 The social conditions of the citizens were comparable to those in Sumeria and superior to the
contemporary Babylonians and Egyptians. These cities display a well-planned urbanization system.
 There is evidence of some level of contact between the Indus Valley Civilization and the Near
East.
 Commercial, religious, and artistic connections have been recorded in Sumerian documents, where
the Indus valley people are referred to as Meluhhaites and the Indus valley is called Meluhha.
 The following account has been dated to about 2000 BCE: "The Meluhhaites, the men of the black
land, bring to Naram-Sin of Agade all kind of exotic wares." (Haywood, p. 76, The Curse of
Agade)
 The Indus Civilization had a writing system which today still remains a mystery: all attempts to
decipher it have failed.
 This is one of the reasons why the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the least known of the
important early civilizations of antiquity.
 Examples of this writing system have been found in pottery, amulets, carved stamp seals, and even
in weights and copper tablets.
 Another point of debate is the nature of the relationship between these cities.
 Whether they were independent city-states or part of a larger kingdom is not entirely clear.
 Because the writing of the Indus people remains undeciphered and neither sculptures of rulers nor
depictions of battles and military campaigns have been found, evidence pointing in either direction
is not conclusive.
THE EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THEY HAD A HIGHLY DEVELOPED CITY LIFE; MANY HOUSES HAD WELLS AND BATHROOMS
AS WELL AS AN ELABORATE UNDERGROUND DRAINAGE SYSTEM.
LINK: WWW.ANCIENT HISTORY ENCYCLOPAEDIA.COM

41. THE LIFE OF THE INDUS VALLEY
CIVILIZATION

42. THE LIFE OF THE INDUS VALLEY
CIVILIZATION

44.  What does the essay “The Antecedents” say about ‘India in Western
imagination’?(for 2017)
 How would you describe India to a Westerner today?
 India has often been called a land of contrasts and extremities. What are
your views on this?(for 2017)
 What aspects of India should be viewed critically, and what aspects could
be viewed with ‘amused benevolence’?
 The West has formed different changing perceptions of India over the past.
How would you like the Western world to view India?
 History can be written from different perspectives. Do you feel that
Indian history must be rewritten? Explain (Most Important for (2017)

45. Reference & Links:-
Books:-
i. The History of India Vol-1 by Romila Thapar.
ii. Ancient Indian History
Web Links:-
i.www.google images.co.in
ii.www.timemaps.com/civilization-ancient-india
v.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India
PRESENTER:-
INDRANIL SARKAR
ASSAM; INDIA