Class 11 History Short Questions with Answers - From The Beginning Of Time

Very Short Question With Answer (1 Mark Each)
Q. 1. When did Primates originate in Asia and Africa?
Ans. Primates originated around 36 million years ago.

Q. 2. What is meant by Hominoids?
Ans. Hominoids is a subgroup of Primates. It includes apes.

Q. 3. From which organism group the hominids were evolved?
Ans. Hominids were evolved from Hominoids.

Q. 4. With which family the Hominids belong?
Ans. The Hominids belong to a family which is known as Hominidae. This family includes all forms of human beings.

Q.5. Write distinctive features of Homonids.
Ans. (i) Large size of brain
(ii) Upright posture
(iii) Bipedal locomotion
(iv) Specialisation of hand with which he could make tools and could use them.

Q. 6. Which are two important groups of the Hominids ?
Ans. (i) Australopithecus
(ii) Homo.

Q.7. Words of which languages are used by scientists to give names to different species?
Ans. Words of Latin and Greek languages are used by scientists to give names to different species.

Q. 8. Which physical features of Australopithecus helped them to live on trees?
Ans. Long forelimbs, Curved hand and foot bones and mobile ankle joints helped Australopithecus to live on trees.

Q. 9. What is the base of classification of fossils of early humans?
Ans. On the basis of bone structure like size of skull and distinctiveness of jaws.

Q. 10. What is meant by Homo? How remains of Homo are classified?
Ans. Homo is a Latin word which means ‘man’.Both males and females are included in it. According to their features, Homos are classified into three types
(i) Homo habilis (the tool makers),
(ii) Homo erectus (the upright man)
(iii) Homo sapiens (the wise or thinking man).

Q. 11. Give two examples in which fossils of Homo were named on the basis of the places where they were found.
Ans. (i) Fossils found in the German city of Heidelberg were called as Homo heidelbergensis.
(ii) Fossils found in the Neander Valley were called as Homo neanderthalensis.

Q. 12. Which are the earliest Homo fossils found in Europe? Which species do they belong to?
Ans. The earliest fossils found in Europe are of Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis. Both of these belong to the species of Homo sapiens.

Q. 13. Which feature of Homo is expressed by the increase in brain size?
Ans. More intelligence and a better memory.

Q. 14. What indicates that Hominids reached other parts of Africa, Asia and Europe from East Africa?
Ans. Fossils of Hominid found in Asia were not older as compared to fossils found in Africa. It indicates that Hominid reached other parts of Africa, Asia and probably Europe from East Africa.

Q. 15. What is meant by Scavenged or foraged and Gathering?
Ans. Scavenged and Gathering are two ways used by early humans to collect food.
(i) Scavenged or foraged : The meaning of scavenged is the cleaning up of discarded things. Now, it is being suggested that the early hominids scavenged for marrow and meat from the carcasses of animals which died naturally or were killed by other predators.
(ii) Gathering. The process of gathering includes collecting plant material like seeds, berries, nuts, fruits and tubers.

Q. 16. At which two places the earliest clear evidences of deliberate, planned hunting and butchery of large mammals have been found?
Ans. At Boxgrove in southern England of 500,000 years ago and Schoningen in Germany of 400,000 years ago.

Q. 17. What was included in the process of gathering of early man?
Ans. The process of gathering of early man included the collection of plant products like nuts, seeds, fruits, berries and tubers.

Q.18. What did the ‘Hearths’ found in early age caves indicate?
Ans. It indicates toward controlled use of fire.

Q. 19. Why were apes, like humans, unable to make the tools and use them?
Ans. This was due to lack of memory and complex organisational skills, apes were unable to make the tools and use them.

Short Question With Answer (2 Mark Each)
Q.1. On what grounds it is said that the development of humans took place in an evolutionary manner?
Ans. Scientists believe that the humans developed in an evolutionary manner. Many species of humans emerged and then became extinct. After the process of millions of years, modern humans originated. We get evidence of this process from the fossils of those species of humans which have now become extinct.
They had different physical features. Their period can be determined by direct chemical analysis or indirectly by dating the sediments in which they are buried. From this, it is clear that these species survived at different times. Their physical features keep on changing and thus modern humans came into being.

Q.2. What is meant by Primates? Write their main features.
Ans. Subgroup of a larger group of mammals are Primates. This group includes apes, monkeys and humans. Main features of this group are given below:
(i) They have hair on their body.
(ii) They have long gestation period following birth.
(iii) They have mammary glands among females to feed their children.
(iv) They have different types of teeth.
(v) They have the ability to maintain a constant body temperature.

Q.3. From whom the Hominids evolve ? Write differences between the both.
Ans. The Hominids evolved from the Hominoids. Following are the differences between them :
(i) The Hominoids had a smaller brain size as compared to Hominids.
(ii) The Hominoids were quadrupedes and walked on all fours. On contrary to it, Hominids have an upright posture and bipedal locomotion, means they walked on two feet.
(iii) Marked differences are there in their hands.
Hominids have such hands which enable them to make and use tools.

Q.4. Why the name of Australopithecus was given to early humans?
Ans. The name Australopithecus is made up of two words—Latin word ‘austral’ whose meaning is ‘southern’ and a Greek word ‘pithekos’ whose meaning is ‘ape’. This name was given because the early humans still had the features of apes. For example:
(i) Size of their brain was smaller as compared to Homo.
(ii) They had large back teeth.
(iii) They had limited dexterity of hands.
(iv) They had restricted upright walking because they used to stay most of their time on trees. So their physical features suited to live on trees.

Q.5. What were the advantages of bipedalism to early humans ? Where do indirect and direct evidences of bipedalism come from?
Ans. Bipedalism freed early human’s hands. Now he could use his hands for carrying infants or objects. As hands were used more and more, upright walking gradually became more efficient. Except from the advantage of freeing hands for different uses, quite less energy was consumed while walking as compared to the walking as a quadruped. But this advantage of saving energy was reversed at the time of running.
Evidences of bipedalism are recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia.

Q.6. When the phase of glaciation or an Ice Age came into being ? How and which changes it brought in the process of human evolution?
Ans. Ice Age or glaciation came into being around 2.5 million years ago. Large parts of the earth were covered with snow. It brought major changes in the climate and vegetation of the earth. There was a reduction in temperatures as well as in rainfall. That is why forests were reduced. As compared to it, there was an expansion of grassland areas. It led to gradual extinction of early forms of Australopithecus because they were adapted to live in forests. They were replaced by those species which were better adapted to drier conditions. These species include the representatives of the genus Homo.

Q.7. What is meant by Homo ? Into which classes have they been divided?
Ans. Homo is a Latin word which means ‘man’.
Scientists have divided Homo into several species.
The names given to these species are derived from their typical characteristics. Therefore fossils are classified as the following three species:
(i) Homo habilis — the tool maker
(ii) Homo erectus — the upright man
(iii) Homo sapiens — the wise or thinking man.
The fossils of Homo habilis have been found at Omo in Ethiopia and at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
The earliest fossils of Homo erectus have been discovered both in Asia and Africa.

Q.8. Early man deliberately chose some sites for hunting. Why ? Explain with example.
Ans. Early man deliberately chose some sites for hunting. One such site was Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic. It was near a river. Early man chose such sites as he knew about the movement of animals.He also knew about the ways of killing large number of animals quickly. For example, at the site chosen by early man near a river in the Czech Republic, herds of migratory animals like reindeers and horses might have crossed the river during their migration in autumn and spring season and might have been killed on a large scale.

Q.9. How do we get information about life style and open air residence of early man?
Ans. There is one way of getting information about lifestyle and open air residence of early man and that is by plotting the distribution of artefacts. For example, thousands of hand axes and flake tools have been found at Olorgesailie and Kilombe (Kenya).
These artefacts are 700,000 to 500,000 years old. The accumulation of these things at one place means that some places were visited repeatedly by early humans, where food resources were abundantly available.
People, in such areas, would tend to leave behind evidences of their presence and activities which include artefacts. The deposited artefacts would appear as patches on the landscape. Very fewer artefacts have been found at other places which were less frequently visited.

Q.10. Give brief description of there placement model of human evolution.
Ans. According to the replacement model, wherever human lived, all of his older forms were replaced with modern humans. There is evidence of the genetic and anatomical homogeneity of modern humans. It has been argued in its favour that this similarity is so because their descendents originated in a single region i.e. Africa. They went over to other areas from here. It is evident by the earliest fossils of modern humans found at Omo in Ethiopia. On the other hand, the physical differences observed among modern humans are because of living permanently at any specific place for thousands of years. Conditions of different places helped in the origin of these differences because humans adapt themselves according to specific circumstances of any particular place.