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NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Social Science Chapter 4 Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

Updated on 2026-09-19

About this chapter

Almost all of human history has no writing in it. Fig. 4.3 puts the split exactly: more than 99 per cent of human history falls before writing (about 3 million years ago to 5000 years ago ) and less than 1 per cent after it. For the 99 per cent the only witnesses are artefacts — tools, bones, pottery, hearths — so dating is approximate ; after writing, documents name people and give specific dates, so dating becomes relatively accurate . The chapter's account of our ancestry is built on two kinds of find: stone tools and fossils . The earliest stone tools are dated to about 3.3 million years ago — the moment the chapter treats as the start of 'human behaviour', because animals lack the cognitive ability to make such tools. Fig. 4.6 gives the sequence: Homo habilis (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

  • Chapter opening
  • Fig. 4.1, Harappan script on a seal
  • Migration out of Africa
  • Fig. 4.6, Skulls of early humans and modern humans
  • Fig. 4.7, Periods in Early Human History
  • Fig. 4.20, Harappan stone weights
  • Bronze Age Civilisations Outside India
  • Mesopotamian Civilisation
  • The Sumerians and the ziggurat
  • The Beginning of Writing
Quick revision
TermWhat it meansWhere it appears in the chapterThe evidence or figure the book gives
ArchaeologyThe study of the human past through material remains — tools, bones, pottery, buildings — recovered by excavation.Page 65 box; Fig. 4.5Archaeologists also replicate tools: they make and use copies to learn how early humans made and depended on them
ArtefactAny object made by humans — tool, implement, ornament, pot.Fig. 4.3, page 63For the 99 per cent of history before writing, artefacts are the major source for reconstructing ways of living
FossilPreserved remains, traces or impressions of plants, animals or humans from the distant past, formed when remains are buried under layers of earth and slowly turn to stone.Page 66 marginThe Fig. 4.6 skulls are fossils; they are why we can say Homo habilis lived at Olduvai Gorge
HomininThe group that includes modern humans and our early human-like ancestors — that is, the tool makers.Page 64 margin; page 65Defined by tool-making: the earliest stone tools are about 3.3 million years old
Homo erectusAn upright or bipedal human ancestor; inventor of handaxes and cleavers; the first hominin to leave Africa.Page 64 margin; Fig. 4.6bLived in the Eastern African Rift Valley 2 million years ago; its tools found across Asia and Europe date the exit to 2–0.5 million years ago
Homo sapiensModern humans — the only human species living on earth today.Pages 65–66, 70; Fig. 4.6dEvolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago; spread to Australia and the Americas between 50000 and 12000 years ago
Old WorldThe geographical area of the oldest human settlements of the earliest palaeolithic period — Africa, Asia and Europe together.Page 65 margin
Extra-corporal limbsThe chapter's phrase for stone tools — extensions of the body that let people do what bare hands cannot.Page 65Tools were made, used, discarded, buried in upper layers of earth, and later excavated
PalaeolithicOld Stone Age (palaeo = old, lithic = stone). Hunting–gathering with simple stone tools.Pages 67–70; Figs. 4.7, 4.8Attirampakkam 1.5–1.7 million years; Isampur 1.2 million years; handaxes, cleavers, scrapers, choppers of quartzite and limestone
MesolithicThe transitional phase between hunting–gathering and agriculture, marked by microlithic (tiny stone) tools.Pages 67, 70; Fig. 4.7From about 12000 years ago, after the climate warmed; fishing became the mainstay; first population explosion; Bhimbetka rock art
NeolithicNew Stone Age: shift to agriculture and settled life, domestication of animals, polished stone tools.Pages 67, 71–73; Figs. 4.7, 4.13Mehrgarh 7000 BCE; Sanganakallu 2000 BCE; most of the subcontinent farming by 2500 BCE
ChalcolithicCopper and Stone Age — copper used alongside stone tools; early metallurgy.Pages 67, 73–74; Fig. 4.7Mehrgarh people made the first copper objects, Chalcolithic by about 4000 BCE; Fig. 4.18 marks Chalcolithic at 4500 BCE
Bronze AgeDevelopment of bronze metallurgy — copper mixed with tin — with expanded trade, towns and the first civilisations.Page 67; Figs. 4.7, 4.18Fig. 4.18 begins the Indian Bronze Age at 3300 BCE; the running text on page 73 says about 3500 BCE
Iron AgeWidespread iron metallurgy (smelting and working iron); stronger tools and weapons.Page 67; page 89In China, iron becomes common by 600 BCE; in India, Brahmi and Iron Age people from about 400 BCE
MicrolithA very small stone tool; microblades were hafted into a handle for use.Pages 69–70; Figs. 4.11a, 4.11bEnabled gathering of marine and freshwater food; bow and arrow, beads of stone, bone and shell
Burin (engraver)A distinctive stone tool used to engrave symbolic marks on bone and shell such as ostrich eggs.Page 70The chapter's evidence for symbolic communication before writing
DomesticationBringing selected plants and animals under human control and breeding new varieties through cultivation and husbandry.Page 71; Fig. 4.14Fig. 4.14 shows it starting at different dates in West Asia, India, China and West Africa
MehrgarhNeolithic site on the Bolan river (present-day Pakistan); the subcontinent's oldest Neolithic site and earliest farming village.Page 73; Fig. 4.167000 BCE; sun-dried brick houses and granaries, graves, lapis lazuli, carnelian and shell ornaments; wheat, barley, sheep, goats, zebu
Early HarappanThe stage of cultural continuity leading into the mature civilisation — same pottery traditions, beads, shell bangles, terracotta, copper work.Pages 74–76; Fig. 4.183300–2600 BCE on Fig. 4.18; radio-carbon dates put Pre-Harappan Bhirrana and Kunal at 7000–5500 BCE
Sindhu lipiThe Harappan script — found on seals and pottery, pictographic, not yet deciphered.Pages 61–62; Fig. 4.1Contrast with cuneiform and hieroglyphs, both deciphered, which is why we can read those societies and not this one
CuneiformOne of the earliest writing systems, developed by the Sumerians; wedge-shaped marks pressed into damp clay tablets. From Latin cuneus, 'wedge'.Pages 80–81; Fig. 4.25Begun about 3200 BCE; in use across Mesopotamia by 3000 BCE; out of use by the end of the first millennium BCE
ZigguratA tower-like stepped pyramid-shaped temple; the top was a holy place, palaces and royal storehouses stood around it, and the surrounding wall had only one entrance because it was also the city's treasury.Page 79; Fig. 4.23Every Sumerian city grew around its ziggurat; all economic activity was tied to temple authority
City-stateA sovereign state centred on a city that rules the surrounding territories.Page 79 marginFour in Mesopotamia from 3500 BCE onwards: Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian
Meluhha, Magan, DilmunThe eastern trading partners named in Akkadian cuneiform tablets of King Sargon.Page 82; Fig. 4.26Meluhha is generally identified with the Sindhu–Sarasvatī civilisation; Dilmun is today's Bahrain, Magan the Oman peninsula
Code of HammurabiHammurabi's compilation of rules for civil and social conduct, enforced throughout his empire.Page 83; Fig. 4.27Hammurabi ascended in 1792 BCE; the code was a foundational model for later legal systems
PapyrusWriting sheets made by cutting the inner trunk of the papyrus plant into strips, criss-crossing, pressing, drying and polishing them.Page 84 marginThe Papyrus Ebers lists more than 700 cures and spells of Egyptian medicine
KemetThe Egyptians' name for their own land — 'the black', from the black river-valley soil left by the Nile flood.Pages 85The annual summer inundation deposited rich mud, excellent for crops
MummificationRemoving the internal organs except the heart, drying the body with natron, oiling it, wrapping it in linen strips, placing it in a coffin and burying it with rituals.Page 87 marginDone because each person was believed to have a ka — a spiritual double — that lived on if the body was preserved
Oracle bonesSymbols made on animal bones and tortoise shells; the bones were heated until they cracked and the crack patterns were interpreted.Page 90; Fig. 4.36The earliest source of information about China; they record the hopes, desires and fears of the early Chinese
Silk RouteThe route along which Chinese silk was traded; silk became a major export around the 2nd century BCE under the Han.Page 92Silk was known in China from the Neolithic, 4000–3000 BCE

Exercises

  1. Chapter opening — The Big Questions Page 61
  2. Fig. 4.1, Harappan script on a seal — LET'S EXPLORE Page 62
  3. Migration out of Africa — THINK ABOUT IT Page 65
  4. Fig. 4.6, Skulls of early humans and modern humans — LET'S EXPLORE Page 66
  5. Fig. 4.7, Periods in Early Human History — THINK ABOUT IT Page 67
  6. Fig. 4.14, Transition to the agricultural way of life in different parts of the world — THINK ABOUT IT Page 71
  7. Fig. 4.20, Harappan stone weights — THINK ABOUT IT Page 76
  8. Bronze Age Civilisations Outside India — THINK ABOUT IT Page 77
  9. Mesopotamian Civilisation — LET'S EXPLORE Page 79
  10. The Sumerians and the ziggurat — LET'S EXPLORE Page 80
  11. The Beginning of Writing — LET US RECALL Page 81
  12. The Akkadians — LET'S EXPLORE Page 82
  13. Fig. 4.29, An illustration from the Papyrus of Ani — THINK ABOUT IT Page 85
  14. Fig. 4.30, The region in which the Egyptian civilisation flourished — LET'S MAP Page 86
  15. Fig. 4.32, Social hierarchy Pyramid — LET'S EXPLORE Page 87
  16. Fig. 4.33, Daily items used by the Egyptians — THINK ABOUT IT Page 88
  17. The Chinese Civilisation — In-text Questions Page 89
  18. The Chinese logographic script — LET'S EXPLORE Page 90
  19. Fig. 4.38, The Great Wall of China — THINK ABOUT IT Page 92
  20. Silk and the Silk Route — LET'S RECALL Page 92
  21. The chapter's recap points, expanded with their evidence — Before we move on … Page 93
  22. End-of-chapter exercise — Questions and activities Page 93–94
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