Although the beginning of the Neolithic Culture ii assigned to 9000 BC in the world context, in the Indian subcontinent the earliest Neolithic settlement is at Mehrgarh, Baluchistan (now in Pakistan), d to around 7000 BC.
Some Neolithic settlements ii North India may be as old as 5000 BC, but in South India may not be earlier than 2500 some in southern and eastern India may be as late as 1000 BC. Overall, the period between 5000 and 3000 BC has been accepted to be the Indian
(The term ‘Neolithic’ was coined by Sir John Lubbock in his book Prehistoric Times, first published in 1865. The term denotes an age in which stone implements were made more skillfully and were more varied in form than earlier.
V. Gordon Childe defined the Neolithic-Chalcolithic culture as a self-sufficient food economy. Miles Burkit put forward the following four characteristics a culture should fulfill to be known as a Neolithic culture: (i) agriculture practice, (ii) animal domestication, (iii) grinded and polished stone tools, and (iv) pottery manufacture. )
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Neolithic age. The Neolithic Culture witnessed considerable changes in the socio-economic life of the people.
Human communities entered a new stage of culture when they started cultivation and domestication of animals, both for milk and meat and for harnessing their labour for various purposes.
The development of agriculture in the real sense was a remarkable development of the period. Tools of the Neolithic Culture were also more advanced than those of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic Cultures.