First Farmers and Neolithic River Valley Civilizations

Flashcards covering key terms, historical sites, and agricultural developments from the lecture on early human history, the Neolithic Revolution, and river valley civilizations.

Homo Habilis

Early hominins who made the first stone tools, which were useful for simple jobs like scraping meat from hides, splitting bones to extract marrow, and breaking nuts.

Mesopotamia

The Greek name meaning the region between two rivers ('Mesos' meaning 'middle one' and 'Potamos' meaning 'river'), referring to the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers encompassing modern Iraq, Syria, western Iran, and south-eastern Turkey.

Rosetta Inscriptions

Ancient inscriptions whose decipherment gave momentum to the study and publication of ancient Egyptian remains following Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798.

Huang He Valley

A river valley in China considered to be the region of origin of Chinese culture, where neolithic agriculture began around 7000 B.C.E.

Mehrgarh

An archaeological site in Baluchistan that has yielded evidence of continuous human occupation from neolithic times to the rise of the Harappan civilization.

Neolithic Revolution

A term coined by Australian archaeologist Gordon Childe to describe the radical changes in the way of life during the Neolithic Age as humans transitioned to cultivation and settled village life.

Microliths

Tiny stone blades as small as fingernails, removed from siliceous stones using the Fluted Core technique during the Mesolithic period, which were hafted onto wooden or bone shafts to make composite tools.

Fluted Core Technique

A stone-tool manufacturing technique used in the Mesolithic period to remove tiny blades known as microliths from siliceous stones.

Lahuradeva

A neolithic village site contemporary to Mehrgarh, located in the Sant Kabirnagar district of Uttar Pradesh, India.

Chalcolithic Farmers of Maharashtra

The first farmers of Maharashtra, who lived in settlements such as Inamgaon in the Shirur taluka of Pune district, as no evidence of purely neolithic sites has been found in Maharashtra.

Jomon Culture

A Mesolithic culture of Japan that has yielded early evidence of pottery making.

Pottery Baking Temperature

The technical baking temperature required to properly produce baked pottery, which is approximately $850^\text{o}\text{C}-900^\text{o}\text{C}$.

Daojali Hading

An archaeological site in Assam established around 2700 B.C.E. where evidence of a neolithic settlement in Northeast India was first discovered.

Burzahom and Gufkral

Archaeological sites in Jammu and Kashmir where neolithic settlements were established around 2500 B.C.E.