CHAPTER-5
Ecology and Environment
Revision NOTES (PRELIMS + MAINS)
- Ecology
- Ecology as a term was coined in 1869
- Surroundings and Settlements
- The use of the iron axe and iron ploughshare from about 500 BC.
- The hard alluvial soil of the mid-Gangetic plains, the red soil of the Vindhyan zone, and the black cotton soil of the Deccan and western India needed iron shares for effective ploughing.
- Pataliputra, the first great city of India. This place lay on the junction of the Ganges and the Son.
- The Gandak and the Ghagara too joined the Ganges on the north and the Punpun joined it on the south.
- Chirand became important because it was located on the junction of the Ganges and the Ghaghara, and sites around it seem to have been forested. This is indicated by the excavation of Neolithic tools in Chirand. Many of them are made of antler bones which suggest that deer were hunted in the nearby forest
The Rain and Human Effort
- Plant and animal remains from Inamgaon in Maharashtra suggest the onset of an extremely arid phase around 1000 BC that forced the farmers to desert their homes and take to pastoral nomadism.
हिन्दी