NCERT HISTORY CLASS - VI
CHAPTER-IV PART-II
DESCRIBING PEOPLE
Rigveda has some words for the description of people, in consideration with the terms of the work they do, languages they speak, community, culture, and also families. There are two types of people described in terms of their work.
1. The Priest (Brahmins - who performs rituals)
2. The Rajas (Rules the country)
The words for describing the common people are Jana which is still in use and Vish (Vaishya). Eg: Puru Jana or Vish, Bharata Jana or Vish and so on. Aryas are the people who compose the hymns, the others except Aryas were considered as Dasas or Dasyus who perform sacrifices, later they were described as slaves (Dasa/Dasi) and treated like property that someone can own and trade them.
SILENT SENTINELS
According to the name Sentinels (Guardian), Megaliths were used to mark and guard the burial sites. Around 3,000 years ago, Megaliths were started erecting in Northeast, Deccan, Kashmir. Archaeologists found some megaliths on the surface and often beneath the burial sites. Black and Red ware pots were used to bury the body with tools, iron weapons, skeletons of horses, ornaments of stone, and gold.
STATUS IN BURIALS
Archaeologists found some belongings with the skeleton of a dead person. In Brahmagiri, a body is found with 33 gold beads, 2 stone beads, 4 copper bangles, and one conch shell. This shows that some rich were buried with their valuable things, even in burials status of a person plays a major role. People of the same family were buried in the same place with all their belongings but at different times. A person who died later was buried in that place through the portholes with the indication of the circle stones. This is why we found one or more skeletons in the same place.
SKELETAL STUDIES
Making out the skeleton of children and the grown person is easy due to their size differentiation (small & big). But, identifying the sex of a skeleton is not much easy. There are some factors from which we can assume it,
- Some skeletons were found with jewelry, it thought to be a skeleton of a woman. however, sometimes men too wore ornaments.
- A better way is to look at the pelvic or the hip area of a skeleton. In which women have larger pelvic regions than men to enable childbearing.
AT INAMGAON
Around 3,600 to 2700 BP, a site called Inamgaon on the river Ghod, Bhima in which Adults were buried out straight with the head facing the north. Some were buried within the houses, vessels with after and food inside. The house may also have granary too, and the body was placed in a cross-legged position. Archaeologists also found some seeds of grains, fruits, bones of animals, which shows their food culture.
CHARAKA
A famous physician of those days wrote a book on a medicine called Charaka Samhita. He states that the human body has 300 bones, which included teeth, joints, and cartilages.