NCERT Book Class 6 Social Science (History) Chapter 2 From Hunting–Gathering to Growing Food

CHAPTER 2
FROM HUNTING–GATHERING TO
GROWING FOOD
Tushar’s train journey
Tushar was going from Delhi to Chennai for his cousin’s
wedding. They were travelling by train and he had
managed to squeeze into the window seat, his nose
glued to the glass pane. As he watched trees and houses
fly past, his uncle tapped his shoulder and said: “Do
you know that trains were first used about 150 years
ago, and that people began using buses a few decades
later?” Tushar wondered, when people couldn’t travel
quickly from one place to another, did they spend their
entire lives wherever they were born? Not quite.

The earliest people: why were they on the move?
We know about people who lived in the subcontinent
as early as two million years ago. Today, we describe
them as hunter-gatherers. The name comes from
the way in which they got their food. Generally,
they hunted wild animals, caught fish and birds,
gathered fruits, roots, nuts, seeds, leaves, stalks
and eggs.
Hunter-gatherers moved from place to place.
There are many reasons for this.
First, if they had stayed at one place for a long
time, they would have eaten up all the available
plant and animal resources. Therefore, they would
have had to go elsewhere in search of food.
Second, animals move from place to place —
either in search of smaller prey, or, in the case of
deer and wild cattle, in search of grass and leaves.
That is why those who hunted them had to follow
their movements.

 10
our pasts–i

Chapter 1-2.indd 10 22 April 2022 12:12:46