NCERT Class 6 History Chapter 4: In the Earliest Cities YouTube Lecture Handouts

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NCERT Class 6 History Chapter 4: In the Earliest Cities

City Layout

  • West: Higher & Smaller - Citadel
  • East: Lower & Large - lower town – walls of baked bricks (interlocking)
  • Mohenjo-Daro: Great Bath - lined with bricks, coated with plaster, and made water-tight with a layer of natural tar
  • Kalibangan and Lothal - fire altars
  • Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and Lothal - store houses

Houses, Drains & Streets – Planned & Built at Same Time

  • One or two story
  • Built around courtyard
  • Each house had bathing area- wells to supply water
  • Covered drains – gentle slope
  • Small drains to bigger drains
  • Drains had inspection holes – for cleaning

Life in City

  • People planned construction of buildings (rulers)
  • Ornaments of gold, silver, bead
  • Scribes: people who wrote and prepared seals
  • Craftsperson – terracotta toys
  • Harappan seal: earliest form of writing – still not deciphered

Crafts

  • Stone weights made of chert
  • Beads made of carnelian, red stone
  • Copper & bronze: Tools, weapons, ornaments & vessels
  • Gold & silver: Ornaments and vessels
  • Seals of stone – rectangular – animals carved on them
  • Pots with black designs
  • Cotton in Mehrgarh – cloth
  • Spindle whorls – terracotta & faience (artificial with gum & sand or quartz) – to spin thread
  • Faience – used for bead, bangle, earrings
  • Specialist – cutting stone, polishing bead, carving seal

Raw Material

  • Naturally or by farmers – processed to produce finished goods
  • Copper: Rajasthan & Oman
  • Tin: Mixed with copper to make bronze – Afghanistan & Iran
  • Gold: Karnataka
  • Stones: Gujarat, Iran & Afghanistan

Food

  • Farmers & herders supplied food - wheat, barley, pulses, peas, rice, sesame, linseed and mustard
  • Plough: to dig earth & plant seeds (wood)
  • Harappans reared cattle, sheep, goat and buffalo
  • Water & pasture around settlement

Harappan Towns in Gujarat

  • Dholavira: Khadir Beyt in Rann of Kutch - fresh water and fertile soil
  • Lothal: Sabarmati River, in Gujarat, close to the Gulf of Khambat - semi-precious stones

Decline of Civilization

  • Rivers dried up
  • Deforestation – no more grazing
  • Flooding
  • Rulers lost control
  • People moved to new settlements

Manishika