Early humans and the first cities
Class 6 Social Science · History · 28 questions with answers
Class 6 History is not a list of dates. Almost every question asks why something changed or how we know it happened, and both need a reason rather than a fact.
- Explains why early people moved from hunting to farming
- Says how historians know about a period, not just what happened
- Compares two ways of life and gives a difference that matters
Exercise 1 of 3 · 10 questions
Answer in one or two sentences.
Write the answer · Warm-up
Here’s one done for you
Why did early people move from place to place? → because the food ran out and they had to follow it. The answer names the cause, not the behaviour. 'Because they were nomads' just renames the fact - and that is the most common way marks are lost in this chapter.
- 1)Why did early people move from place to place?
- 2)Why did people begin to settle in one place?
- 3)Why did early settlements grow near rivers?
- 4)Why did people begin to keep animals rather than only hunt them?
- 5)Why were stone tools used for such a long period?
- 6)Why did the discovery of fire change how early people lived?
- 7)Why did farming lead to people owning things for the first time?
- 8)Why did trade begin between early settlements?
- 9)Why do we know far more about later periods than about the earliest ones?
- 10)Why did some early settlements grow into cities while others stayed villages?
Answers
- 1) Because they hunted animals and gathered plants, and both ran out in one place, so they had to follow the food.
- 2) Because they learned to grow crops, and a crop has to be looked after in one place until it is ready.
- 3) Because rivers gave water for drinking and for crops, and the land beside them was fertile.
- 4) Because keeping animals gave a steady supply of milk and meat instead of depending on a successful hunt.
- 5) Because stone was found everywhere and could be shaped without any other tool, and metals were not yet known.
- 6) Because it gave warmth, light and protection from animals, and cooked food, which is easier to eat and to digest.
- 7) Because a stored harvest could be kept and passed on, which nothing a hunter-gatherer carried could be.
- 8) Because different places had different things - grain, stone, metal - and each settlement wanted what it could not produce itself.
- 9) Because later periods left writing and inscriptions, while the earliest ones left only objects that have to be interpreted.
- 10) Because those with surplus food, a river and a trade route could support many people who did not farm, such as traders and craftsmen.
Exercise 2 of 3 · 10 questions
How do historians know? Name the kind of evidence.
Write the answer · Guided
Here’s one done for you
That Harappans planned their cities → from the remains of streets and drains laid out in a grid. The question is not what happened but how anyone knows. Every 'how do we know' answer names a source: an object, a building, a grain, or a piece of writing. That is a whole category of marks children never expect.
- 1)That early people made stone tools
- 2)That Harappans planned their cities carefully
- 3)That people grew wheat and barley
- 4)What kings of a later period ordered to be done
- 5)That Harappans traded with distant lands
- 6)That people cooked their food
- 7)What clothes people wore
- 8)That a settlement was suddenly abandoned
- 9)How old a wooden object is
- 10)That people kept cattle
Answers
- 1) From the tools themselves, found at sites where people lived.
- 2) From the remains of streets, drains and buildings laid out in a grid.
- 3) From burnt grains found at excavation sites.
- 4) From inscriptions - writing carved on stone or metal.
- 5) From Harappan seals and beads found at sites far outside the Harappan region.
- 6) From hearths, ash and charred bones found where they lived.
- 7) From figurines, sculptures and paintings that show people dressed.
- 8) From objects left behind in place, with no sign of the settlement being rebuilt.
- 9) From dating the wood scientifically, which tells us roughly when the tree died.
- 10) From animal bones found at settlement sites, and from cattle shown on seals.
Exercise 3 of 3 · 8 questions
Give one important difference between each pair.
Write the answer · Practice
Here’s one done for you
Hunter-gatherer versus farmer → one moved to follow food, the other stayed to look after crops. A good comparison names the same thing about both sides. 'Farmers grew crops' describes only one half and does not compare anything - the word 'while' is a useful test that both sides are present.
- 1)A hunter-gatherer and a farmer
- 2)A Harappan city and a village of the same period
- 3)A stone tool and an iron tool
- 4)A written source and an object dug up from the ground
- 5)The Equator and the Prime Meridian
- 6)A map and a globe
- 7)A gram panchayat and a gram sabha
- 8)A village livelihood and a city livelihood
Answers
- 1) A hunter-gatherer moved to follow food, while a farmer stayed in one place to look after crops.
- 2) The city had planned streets, drains and large buildings, while a village had fewer houses and no such planning.
- 3) An iron tool was stronger and stayed sharp longer, so it could clear land and cut crops far more easily.
- 4) A written source tells us directly what someone thought worth recording, while an object has to be interpreted and cannot say why it was made.
- 5) The Equator is a line of latitude running east to west, while the Prime Meridian is a line of longitude running pole to pole.
- 6) A globe shows the true shape and size of the Earth, while a map is flat and can show far more detail of a small area.
- 7) The panchayat is the small elected body that makes decisions, while the gram sabha is the meeting of all adult voters that it answers to.
- 8) A village livelihood usually depends directly on land, water or weather, while a city livelihood usually depends on customers, wages or trade.
While your child works
- 'Because they were nomads' renames the fact instead of explaining it. Ask 'but why did they do that?' whenever an answer restates the question.
- The 'how do we know' questions are a whole category of marks children do not expect. Every answer names a source: an object, a building, a grain, an inscription.
- In comparisons, check the word 'while' or 'whereas' appears. If it does not, usually only one side has been described.