(a) Discuss the role of marriage regulations in traditional societies in India for strengthening social solidarity. 20 (b)…

(a) Role of marriage regulations in strengthening social solidarity in traditional India

Marriage rules bind individuals and groups into a social order in several ways.

• Endogamy: caste, sub-caste and tribal endogamy keeps group boundaries, ritual purity and hereditary occupations, giving internal cohesion and shared identity (Durkheim's mechanical solidarity).
• Exogamy: rules of gotra, pravara, sapinda and village exogamy in North India, and clan exogamy among tribes such as the Santhal, Munda and Ho, prevent incest and intra-lineage conflict and compel groups to make alliances with others.
• Alliance: through exchange of women, descent groups are linked into reciprocal networks (Lévi-Strauss). Preferential cross-cousin marriage in South India, for example among the Dravidian-speaking groups, renews existing kinship ties and keeps property within the circle.
• Hypergamy (anuloma) and hierarchy: marriage across ranked groups, with wife-givers lower than wife-takers, expresses and reproduces the status order and so its stability.
• Other mechanisms: levirate, sororate and bride-wealth or dowry exchanges create obligations and support the widowed and dependents, and marriage rituals involve the whole community.

Radcliffe-Brown's structural-functionalism sees these rules as maintaining structure, while rigid rules can also reproduce inequality.

(b) Methods of personal identification based on skeletal remains

Identification builds a biological profile and then compares it with records.

• Sex: pelvis (subpubic angle, greater sciatic notch, Phenice traits of pubis), skull (mastoid, nuchal crest, supraorbital ridge), and long-bone dimensions, for example the femoral head.
• Age: in subadults, dental eruption and epiphyseal fusion; in adults, pubic symphysis (Suchey–Brooks), auricular surface, sternal rib ends, cranial sutures and dental wear.
• Stature: regression formulae from long bones (Trotter and Gleser, Pearson), adjusted for population.
• Ancestry: cranial metrics and non-metric traits, with discriminant analysis using FORDISC.
• Individual features: healed fractures, pathology, dental work, and frontal sinus pattern compared with ante-mortem radiographs.
• Comparison and reconstruction: skull-photo superimposition, facial reconstruction, and DNA (including mitochondrial DNA) matched with relatives.
• Dental records are among the most reliable comparisons.

The results are combined with context such as clothing and time since death.

(c) Major Mesolithic sites and typo-technological features in India

Sites: Bagor and Tilwara (Rajasthan), Langhnaj (Gujarat), Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Damdama (Ganga plain, Uttar Pradesh), Adamgarh and Bhimbetka rock shelters (Madhya Pradesh), Birbhanpur (West Bengal), and sites in the Teri dunes of Tamil Nadu.

Typo-technology:

• Microliths made on blades and bladelets of chert, chalcedony, agate and quartz, struck by indirect percussion and pressure flaking, less than 3–5 cm in size.
• Forms are geometric (lunates, triangles, trapezes) and non-geometric (backed blades, points, borers, scrapers, burins).
• They were hafted into wood or bone as composite tools, arrows, harpoons and sickles.
• Bone and antler points and ornaments occur at Mahadaha and Damdama, and burials at Mahadaha, Sarai Nahar Rai and Damdama.
• Economy was hunting-gathering and fishing, with early animal management at Bagor and Adamgarh, and Bhimbetka rock art.