SolveItClass 9 · NCERT

NCERT Solutions · Class 9 Social Science Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

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Let's Recall 4.1–4.2 (part 2 of 6)

  1. Exercise 4.1

    The cuneiform writing system was contemporary to the Harappan script, but while cuneiform has been deciphered, the Harappan script has not yet been deciphered. Do you think our understanding of a civilisation changes when its script is deciphered compared to when it is not?

    The book prints no answer for this

    NCERT publishes no answers for this textbook, so there is nothing in the book to check this working against. It has also not yet been read through by hand.

    Yes — deciphering a script changes what we can know, and the chapter's own table (Fig. $\displaystyle 4.3$) sets out exactly how.
    NCERT_Solution_Class9_SocialScience_Ch4_LR_Q4-1
    Without a readable script, the main sources are tools, implements and other artefacts. These show how people lived and worked, but it is generally difficult to understand their thoughts and ideas.
    With a deciphered script, we also get written documents, which give names; events; and social, political and cultural life.
    Dating becomes more accurate too, because documents mention specific dates for events such as coronations and wars. Without them, dating stays approximate.
    The two contemporaries prove it. From cuneiform we know Mesopotamia's myths, epics, hymns, 'law codes' and educational treatises, the name of King Sargon, and that he traded with Meluhha, Magan and Dilmun. From the Harappans we cannot read a single seal.
    So our picture of the Harappans stays material — planned cities, drainage, standard weights, beads and seals — while our picture of Mesopotamia includes its rulers, its laws and its stories.

  2. Exercise 4.2

    Do you remember studying about the Silk Route in Grade 7\displaystyle 7? How was India connected with it? Can you recollect China’s contact with India with reference to Buddhism that you studied in Grade 7\displaystyle 7?

    The book prints no answer for this

    NCERT publishes no answers for this textbook, so there is nothing in the book to check this working against. It has also not yet been read through by hand.

    What the task asks
    Recall from your Grade $\displaystyle 7$ book how India was connected with the Silk Route, and how China and India were in contact through Buddhism.
    What THIS chapter gives, and this is all of it
    Silk was known to the Chinese from the Neolithic period ($\displaystyle 4000$–$\displaystyle 3000$ BCE) onwards and became an important craft during the Bronze Age.
    Around the 2nd century BCE, during the Han dynasty, silk became a major item of external trade — so much so that the whole route on which it was traded came to be called the Silk Route.
    The chapter says nothing about India's place on the route, and nothing about Buddhism.
    Worked example of the shape a recall answer takes
    "The Silk Route was not a single road but a network of routes joining China to lands in the west. Goods moving along it passed through and around India, so Indian traders and Indian ports were part of the network. Along the same roads travelled not only goods but people and ideas — which is how Buddhism spread from India into China."
    What a good answer must contain
    Your Grade $\displaystyle 7$ book open in front of you — this is a recall question, so the answer must match what that book actually says, not what you half-remember.
    The route named and its two ends named.
    At least one Indian region, city or port named from that book.
    One named person, monastery or route by which Buddhism reached China.
    A clear line between what came from this chapter (silk, Han dynasty, the name 'Silk Route') and what came from Grade 7.