RAS question
Evidence of the earliest domestication of animals in India comes from which period?
Correct answer: (A) Mesolithic.
In India, the earliest evidence of animal domestication comes from the Mesolithic period, especially from sites such as Adamgarh and Bagor.
Explanation
The Mesolithic is the right period because eGyanKosh, Block 2: Environment and Early Societies places the clearest Indian evidence of animal domestication at Adamgarh hill in the Narmada valley, a rock-shelter site with Mesolithic stone tools and other remains. Its excavated animal bones include domestic dog, Indian humped cattle, water buffalo, goat, domestic sheep and pig, alongside wild species. Bagor in Rajasthan is also listed among important Mesolithic sites, with evidence there of domesticated sheep and goat. That is the core archaeological point in the question: animal domestication in India is not first evidenced in the later Chalcolithic, but already appears in Mesolithic contexts such as Adamgarh and Bagor.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) Lower Paleolithic is wrong because the verified evidence cited for animal domestication comes from Mesolithic contexts, not from Lower Paleolithic tool-bearing phases.
- (C) Chalcolithic is wrong because the question asks for the earliest evidence, which appears earlier, at Mesolithic sites such as Adamgarh and Bagor.
- (D) Upper Paleolithic is wrong because Adamgarh's relevant domestic-animal evidence belongs to the Mesolithic stage, not the Upper Paleolithic.
Concept
This tests the prehistory segment of Ancient India, especially the transition from hunting-gathering towards domestication. It recurs in RAS because Rajasthan's Bagor site makes Mesolithic subsistence changes locally relevant.