ABSTRACT
As human beings changed from hunter-gatherers to herding of animals and cultivation of food crops at the close of ice age, about 10,000 years ago, human settlements started taking place at congenial locations. From the archeological records, it appears that, at least in northwest India, the domestication of animals on which the “new” nomadic pastoralist way of life was based goes back about 7000-10,000 years.1 Cultivation of wheat and barley and the domestication of Indian cow also started taking place in the Indus basin. By about 3500 BC, agricultural settlements began to emerge gradually in eastern, central, and peninsular India also.
