CBSE NCERT CLASS 6 HISTORY CHAPTER-1 WHAT, WHERE, HOW AND WHEN? NOTES & QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

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SASMITA NAYAK MA'AM

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CBSE NCERT CLASS 6 HISTORY CHAPTER-1 WHAT, WHERE, HOW AND WHEN? NOTES & QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS


Chapter-1 (What, Where, How and When?)

Notes


What can we know about the past?


There are several things we can know about our past such as:

  1. What people used to eat, the type of clothes they used to wear, the houses in which they lived.
  2. How were the lives of hunters, herders, farmers, rulers, merchants, priests, crafts persons, artists, musicians, and scientists?
  3. The games children used to play, the stories they have heard, the songs they sang.


Where did people live?


People have lived along the banks of the Narmada river for several hundred thousand years. These people stayed on the bank of the Narmada river as they knew about the vast wealth of plants in the surrounding forests and collected roots, fruits and other forest produce for their food. They also hunted animals.


  1. The Sulaiman and Kirthar Hills to the North-West were some of the areas where women and men first began to grow crops such as wheat and barley about 8000 years ago.
  2. People also began rearing animals like sheep, goats, and cattle and started living in villages.
  3. The places where rice was first grown are to the north of the Vindhyas.
  4. About 2500 years ago, cities developed on the banks of the Ganga and its tributaries, and along the sea coasts.

 

Names of the land


         Our country is called India and Bharat. 


  1. The word India comes from the Indus, called Sindhu in Sanskrit. The Iranians and the Greeks who came through the northwest about 2500 years ago called it the Hindos or the Indos, and the land to the east of the river was called India.
  2. The name Bharata was used for a group of people who lived in the northwest, and who are mentioned in the Rigveda, the earliest composition in Sanskrit (dated to about 3500 years ago). Later it was used for the country.

 

Finding out about the past


  • There are several ways of finding out about the Past.


  1. One way through which we can find is by reading books that were written long ago. These books are called manuscripts because they were written by hand. These were usually written on palm leaves, or on the specially prepared bark of a tree known as the birch, which grows in the Himalayas. These books dealt with all kinds of subjects: religious beliefs and practices, the lives of kings, medicine and science. Besides, there were epics, poems, and plays.
  2. We can also study Inscriptions. These are writing on relatively hard surfaces such as stone or metal. Sometimes, kings got their orders inscribed so that people could see, read and obey them, they used inscriptions for this purpose. There are other kinds of inscriptions as well, where men and women (including kings and queens) recorded what they did. For example, records of victories in battle.


  •  Archaeologists and historians study several sources to tell us about the past.


Archaeologists


  • An archaeologist is a person who studies the remains of buildings made of stone and brick, paintings and sculptures. They also explore and excavate to find tools, weapons, pots, pans, ornaments and coins. They also look for bones of animals, birds, and fish to find out what people ate in the past.

 

Historians 


  • Scholars who study the past are called historians.
  • Historians use the word source to refer to the information found from manuscripts, inscriptions and archaeology. Once sources are found, learning about the past becomes an adventure. So historians and archaeologists are like detectives, who use all these sources like clues to find out about our pasts.



What do dates mean?


The years are counted from the date to the birth of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity. So, 2000 means 2000 years after the birth of Christ.  All dates before the birth of Christ are counted backwards and usually have the letters BC (Before Christ) added on. In this book, we will refer to dates going back from the present, using 2000 as our starting point. 


Important Terms


  • Source - Source refers to the place of origin or extraction.
  • Decipherment - Decipherment refers to the process of decoding the meaning of written texts, especially anciently written and obscure texts
  • Tributaries:- Tributaries are smaller rivers that flow into a larger river.
  • The beginning of agriculture -(8000 years ago)
  • The first cities on the Indus -(4700 years ago)
  • Cities in the Ganga valley, a big kingdom in Magadha -(2500 years ago)
  • The present (about 2000 AD/CE)




Exercise Questions/Answers



1. Match the following


Ans - 

Narmada Valley - Hunting and gathering

Magadha - The first big kingdom

Garo Hills - Early agriculture

Indus and its tributaries - The first cities

Ganga valley - Cities about 2500 years ago



2. List one major difference between manuscripts and inscriptions.


Ans - Manuscripts – They were written by hand, these were usually written on palm leaves or on the specially prepared bark of a tree known as The Birch, which grows in the Himalayas.


Inscriptions – These are writings on relatively hard surfaces such as stone or metal.



3. Return to Rasheeda’s question. Can you think of some answers to it?


Ans - Rasheeda's question was how could anyone know what had happened so many years ago. There are various ways by which the people can know about the past.

  1. Inscriptions
  2. Manuscripts
  3. Tools and weapons
  4. Reading the books written in the past.



4. Make a list of all objects that archaeologists may find. Which of these could be made of stone?


Ans -  The findings of Archaeologists could be of many different types.

1. Buildings made of stone and brick

2. Paintings

3. Sculpture

4. Tools

5. Weapons

6. Pots

7. Pans

8. Ornaments

9. Coins

The objects that could be made up of stones are given below-

1. Buildings

2. Tools

3. Weapons

4. Ornaments



5. Why do you think ordinary men and women did not generally keep records of what they did?


Ans- Unlike the present day, record keeping was not easy in the past. Records were usually maintained by Kings to describe their victories in battles. Those records were maintained by inscribing on stones, which were not an easy task that could be carried out by ordinary men and women.

We also think Ordinary men and women generally did not keep records of what they did due to the following reasons:

  1. They did not know the art of writing.
  2. Some of them were not literate even after having knowledge of the script.
  3. They were not having interest in such works.
  4. They did not know the importance of keeping records of events. 



6. Describe at least 2 ways in which you think the lives of kings would have been different from those of farmers.


Ans -  1. Kings had absolute power over all his subjects, irrespective of their profession, farmers had no such powers.

2. Kings lived in palaces. Farmers had no such opportunities.

3. The kings wore showy and costly clothes and ornaments. Farmers wore simple and very cheap clothes.

4. The kings were dependent for their food on farmers. Farmers used to produce food for themselves and other people also.

 



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