Chapter
2 From Hunting-Gathering to Growing Food
1. Complete the sentences:
(a) Hunter-gatherers chose to live in caves and rock
shelters because ————————.
Answer - Hunter-gatherers chose to live in
caves and rock shelters because these shelters saved them from heat, rain, wind and wild
animals.
(b) Grasslands developed around ———————— years ago.
Answer - 12000
2. Why do people who grow crops have to stay in the same place for a long time?
Answer - When people began growing plants, it meant that
they had to stay in the same place for a long time looking after the plants,
watering, weeding, driving away animals and birds till the grain ripened.
3. Why do archaeologists think that many people who lived in Mehrgarh were hunters to start with and that herding became more important later?
Answer –
(i)
Mehrgarh is located in a fertile plain, near the Bolan
Pass.
(ii)
Mehrgarh was probably one of the places where people
learnt to grow barley and wheat, and rear sheep and goats for the first time in
this area.
(iii)
It is one of the earliest villages that we know about.
(iv)
At this site many animal bones were found. Bones of
wild animals such as the deer and pig, and also bones of sheep and goat were
found.
4. Why did the hunter-gatherers travel from place to place? In what ways are these similar to/different from the reasons for which we travel today?
Answer - Hunter-gatherers moved from place to
place due to following reasons: -
(i)
In
search of food.
(ii)
In
search of grass and leaves for their animals.
(iii)
In
search of different kinds of plants and fruits.
(iv)
In
search of water during the dry seasons.
In present time we also travel from one place to
another place for Education, Occupations, Trade, and Tourism etc. In this ways
the movements of us is different from Hunter-gatherer.
5. List three ways in which hunter-gatherers used fire. Would you use fire for any of these purposes today?
Answer - Hunter-gatherers used fire for many things: -
(i)
a source of
light,
(ii)
to roast meat,
and
(iii)
to scare away
animals.
In present time we used the fire in
cooking, lighting, generating electricity and in engines etc.
6. List three ways in which the lives of farmers and herders would have been different from that of hunter-gatherers.
Answer - The life of farmers and herders would
have been different from that of hunter-gatherers in the following ways:
(i)
Farmers
and herders lived in group.
(ii)
They
lived settled life.
(iii)
They
lived in huts made up of mud and wood.
7. List the cereals that you eat. Do you grow the cereals you eat?
Answer – We are using Rice, Wheat, Barley,
Jowar, Bajra, Maize etc. cereals for food in present time. These cereals grown
in different parts of India.