Class 12 Bricks, Beads and Bones: The Harappan Civilisation Mock Test (CBSE)

Topics in Bricks, Beads and Bones: The Harappan Civilisation

• Beginnings of the Harappan civilisation
• Subsistence strategies
• Mohenjodaro: a planned urban centre
• Tracking social differences: burials and luxuries
• Finding out about craft production
• Strategies for procuring materials
• Seals, script, trade
• Ancient authority
• The end of the civilisation
• Discovering the Harappan civilisation
• Problems of piecing together the past

Bricks, Beads and Bones: The Harappan Civilisation practice questions with answers

1. Q1Multiple choice·1 mark
   Which of the following architectural features prominently characterises the residential buildings in the lower town of Mohenjodaro?

   1. (a)Shared common exterior walls without independent doorways for privacy
   2. (b)Central courtyards enclosed by rooms focusing on activities like cooking and weaving
   3. (c)Circular mud-brick huts arranged symmetrically around a central public plaza
   4. (d)Multi-storeyed stone structures with wooden balconies
   Show answer and step marks

   1. Correct option: (b) Central courtyards enclosed by rooms focusing on activities like cooking and weaving+1

   Answer: (b)
2. Q2Multiple choice·1 mark
   Which feature of the citadel at Harappa is most often cited by historians as evidence of an organised authority that could mobilise labour and store surplus grain?

   1. (a)Painted pottery found in the lower town
   2. (b)A large granary and a massive brick platform in the citadel
   3. (c)Carnelian beads traded from Gujarat
   4. (d)Bronze figurine of a dancing girl
   Show answer and step marks

   1. Correct option: (b) A large granary and a massive brick platform in the citadel+1

   Answer: (b)
3. Q3Short answer·2 marks
   An archaeologist excavates a cemetery of 40 graves. In 28 graves the dead were buried with pots and shell bangles; the remaining 12 graves contained only the body. Of the 28 graves with goods, only 6 also contained gold ornaments or carnelian beads. (a) What percentage of the 40 graves contained any goods? [1] (b) What does the fact that only 6 graves held gold ornaments or carnelian beads suggest about the people buried in the cemetery? [1]
   Show answer and step marks

   1. (a) Calculation: $\frac{28}{40}\times 100$+0.5
   2. (a) Result: 70% of the graves contained goods+0.5
   3. (b) Pattern: costly goods were found in very few graves, so access to rare wealth was unequal+0.5
   4. (b) Inference: a small number of people held higher social or economic status than the rest+0.5

   Answer: (a) 70%. (b) Unequal access to costly goods suggests that a few people enjoyed higher social or economic status than others.
4. Q4Short answer·2 marks
   A town planner wants to lay out a new market street for a local fair, using the planned layout of Mohenjodaro as a model. (a) Name one feature of Mohenjodaro's layout that the planner could copy for the market street. [1] (b) Explain how this feature would help the crowd of visitors at the fair. [1]
   Show answer and step marks

   1. (a) Feature named: a grid of straight streets cutting across each other at right angles (or covered drains running along the streets)+1
   2. (b) Explanation: straight, intersecting streets make it easy for visitors to find their way and move through the crowd; drains keep the fair area clean (any valid explanation of the named feature)+1

   Answer: (a) A grid of straight, intersecting streets (or covered drains along the streets). (b) It helps visitors move around and find their way easily, and keeps the area clean.
5. Q5Long answer·5 marks
   In the later phase of the Harappan civilisation, excavations at several sites in northwest India and Gujarat report the following. In some large towns, the number of inscribed seals and standard stone weights found in each layer falls over time, and goods that once came from Mesopotamia are no longer found. In the same region, the number of small farming settlements rises. These settlements grew crops and made pottery in a style different from the urban one, but they were not large planned towns. (a) Compare what the decline of seals, weights and long-distance goods in the large towns shows about urban life with what the spread of small settlements shows about the people of the region. [3] (b) Which explanation, sudden invasion or gradual environmental change, does the shift from large towns to small settlements fit better? Give a reason. [2]
   Show answer and step marks

   1. (a) The decline of seals, standard weights and long-distance trade in the large towns shows that urban life, craft organisation and links with distant regions were weakening.+1
   2. (a) The continued farming and pottery-making in small settlements shows that the people of the region did not disappear; they lived in smaller, scattered communities.+1
   3. (a) Comparing the two, the change was in the city-based form of civilisation, not in the population as a whole.+1
   4. (b) Identifies gradual environmental change as the explanation that fits the shift better.+1
   5. (b) Reason: a gradual movement to smaller settlements over time fits drying rivers or shifting rainfall slowly weakening towns, whereas a sudden invasion would leave a sharp break and destruction at one point in time.+1

   Answer: (a) The decline in seals, weights and long-distance trade shows that urban life and its links with distant regions were weakening, while the spread of small farming settlements shows that people continued to live in the region in smaller, scattered communities; the change was in the urban form of the civilisation, not a total disappearance of its people. (b) Gradual environmental change fits better, because a slow movement to smaller settlements over time matches gradual environmental change rather than a sudden invasion.
6. Q6Long answer·5 marks
   Archaeologists studying the Harappan civilisation examine settlements that existed in the Indus region before the planned cities of the mature phase. Explain how the evidence from these earlier settlements helps historians understand the beginnings of the Harappan civilisation.
   Show answer and step marks

   1. Earlier settlements in the Indus region had mud-brick houses and pottery, showing that people already lived in settled villages before the emergence of cities.+1
   2. Pottery from the earlier phases changes gradually into the styles of the mature phase, showing continuity in material culture rather than a sudden break.+1
   3. The number and size of settlements grew over time, showing a gradual expansion of settled life in the region.+1
   4. Early settlements lack the planned grid layouts, drainage systems and large public structures seen later, so urban planning must have developed gradually.+1
   5. Hence the Harappan civilisation grew out of long local developments in village life and craft traditions, and did not appear all at once.+1

   Answer: The earlier settlements show a gradual, continuous development: settled village life, changing pottery styles, growing settlements and the later emergence of planning. Together these show that the Harappan civilisation developed over time from local beginnings rather than appearing suddenly.

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