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DAILY
CLASS NOTES
Ancient History

Lecture - 02
Paleolithic Age (Part-2)
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Paleolithic Age (Part-2)

Pre-Historic India:
 Robert Bruce Foote, discovered what was probably the first paleolithic tool discovered in India in 1863 at
the Pallavaram and called Pallavaram handaxe.
 Later, he discovered a number of pre-historic sites in South India.
 Sir Mortimer Wheeler contributed more to the knowledge of prehistoric cultures.
 In 1856, Le Mesurier (railway engineer) found a small chert arrowhead near Nyagurhee village in Central
India (east of Chacheye Falls on the river Tons in the hilly tracts of the Kaimur Range in southern Uttar
Pradesh).
 On the basis of geological age, the type and technology of stone tools, and subsistence base, the Indian Stone
Age is classified primarily into three types:
 Old Stone Age, Palaeolithic Age: (5,00,000-10,000 BCE)
 Late Stone Age, Mesolithic Age: (10,000-6000 BCE)
 New Stone Age, Neolithic Age: (6,000-1000 BCE)
 A general time range is specified as there is a great deal of variation in the dates for different sites.

Palaeolithic Age:
 Palaeolithic = Palaeo (Old) + Lithic (Stone) i.e., Old Stone
 Sites discovered throughout the country, except alluvial plains of Indus, Ganga and Yamuna (reasons might
be lack of excavations and dense forest region)
 Purpose of Stone:
 Making weapons for hunting.
 For making hammers, cutting and boring activities.
 Phase timeline: 2 mya – 10,000 BC (approx.)

Making of Stone Tools:

 Stone on stone technique: Where a large stone was used as a hammer to hit a smaller stone called the core.
 Pressure flaking technique: Uses a narrow tool to directly apply force to the edge of a core or tool to detach a
flake.

Major Characteristics of Palaeolithic Age:

 Band Society: Sometimes called a camp, or in older usage, a horde, is the simplest form of human society. A
band generally consists of a small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan.
 Lived in the open air, river valleys, caves and rock shelters.
 Food (barely managed): Gathered wild fruits and vegetables.
 Engaged in Hunting activities.
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 No knowledge of agriculture, house building, pottery or any metal.

 They had Knowledge of fire (in later ages)
 In the Upper Palaeolithic period, there is evidence of art (painting).
 Stone tools: Mainly unpolished, undressed, rough stone tools such as hand axe, cleavers, choppers, blades,
scrappers, etc.
 The stones were made of hard rock called quartzite.
 Stone tool usage:
 Chopping food and roots
 Scraping bark (from trees) and hides (from animals)
 Manufacture spears and arrows for hunting that were affixed to handles made of bone or wood.
 Bone implements and wood were also used for making tools.
 Wood was used as firewood and was chopped using other tools.
 Huts and implements were both made of wood.

Core and Flake Tools:

 Core tools: Tools made by breaking and shaping large stones.
 Flake tools: Tools made from smaller pieces of rock and were used as choppers and knives to chop meat and
skin animals.
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Making Stone Tools:

Sites:
 Chotanagpur Plateau - The Palaeolithic tools, which could be as old as 1,00,000 B.C.
 Kurnool district in Andhra-Pradesh - Tools belonging to 20,000 B.C. 10,000 B.C.
 It was spread in practically all parts of India except:
 Alluvial plains of the Indus and Ganga,
 Southern Tamil Nadu
 Hilly areas of the Western Ghats.
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Phases in the Paleolithic Age:

 The Paleolithic Age in India is divided into three phases (by Eduard Lartet) in accordance with the nature
of stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of climatic change:
 Lower Paleolithic culture: [Between 500,000 and 140,000 BC.]
 Middle Palaeolithic culture: [Between 140,000 and 40,000 BC.]
 Upper Palaeolithic culture: [Between 40,000 BC and 10,000 BC.]

Lower Palaeolithic or the Early Stone Age (ESA):

 Period: Between 5,00,000 BCE - 140,000 BCE.
 Type of Tools Used: Hand axes, choppers, and cleavers, mainly for chopping, digging, and skinning.
 Stone Tools: They were rough and heavy.
 Core Tools: Quartzite.
 Early Human: Homo habilis & Homo erectus.
 Lived close to food, water and stone.
 Discovery of fire.

Acheulian Tools (St. Acheul in France):

 Advanced and increasing symmetrical hand axes.
 Associated with Lower Palaeolithic Age
 Continued in later phases too.
 Named after the type site of Saint-Acheul industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive
oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated with Homo erectus.

Lower Palaeolithic Age Sites:

 Bori, Maharashtra
 Hunsgi, Karnataka
 Found in Soan or Sohan river valley and Pabbi hills (now in Pakistan),
 Pahalgam, Kashmir
 Thar Desert (Didwana, Rajasthan)
 Hiran Valley (Gujarat)
 Belan Valley Mirzapur (UP)
 Valleys of Narmada
 Attirampakkam, Pallauaram, Badmadurai (Tamil Nadu)
 Rock shelters of Bhimbetka near Bhopal (roughly belonging to 1,00,000 B.C. The rock shelters may have
served as seasonal camps for human beings).
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Lithic Ages:

Middle Paleolithic or Middle Stone Age (MSA):

 Period: Between 140,000 BCE - 40,000 BCE
 Established only in 1960 by H.D. Sankalia was named Nevasan industry after the site of Nevasa,
Maharashtra.
 Tools: The tools are mainly based upon flakes.
 Types of Tool Used: The principal tools are varieties of scrapers, points, borers, burins made of flakes &
blades,
 Size of Tools: These tools became smaller and there was a decrease in the use of hand axes in relation to
other tools.

Biological Changes:
 Homoerectus became more bipedal.
 Forelimbs are free now.
 They became more convenient.

Cognitive Revolution:
 It occurred between 70,000 to 30,000 years ago.
 It allowed Homo sapiens to communicate.

Middle Palaeolithic Sites:

 Potwar Plateau (between Indus and Jehlum).
 Sanghao Cave (near Peshawar, Pakistan).
 Nevasa
 Found in Son, Narmada and Tungabhadra river valleys.
 The geographical horizon of the Middle Palaeolithic sites coincides, more or less, with that of the Lower
Palaeolithic sites.
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Linguistic Background:
 Linguistic survey was first proposed by George Abraham Greison.
 Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing
364 languages and dialects.
 As per the LSI, there are approximately 180 languages and 550 dialects spoken by Indians.
 Four waves of language:
 Austro-Asiatic
 Tibeto-Burman
 Dravidian
 Indo-Aryan

Language Waves
Austro-Asiatic Tibeto-Burman Dravidian Indo-Aryan
 2 types: Indian sub-  Branch of Sino-  Covers: Entire South  Belong to the Indo-
continent + Tibetan language. India + North-East Sri Aryan family.
Austronesian.  Family has 300 Lanka  Genes found in Central
 Indian Sub- languages.  Earliest form of this Asia (Steppes).
continent:  Spoken in the speech: Brahui (found in  Probably Arya branch
 Munda: Speak Himalayan belt, Pakistan) which split into 3 parts:
Santhali, found especially in  Migration of Dravidian:  Indo-Iranian: Spoken
in Jharkhand, North East states.  Genetic view: came in Iran and earliest
Odisha. from the Middle east specimen found in Zend
 Mon Khmer: around 30,000 years Avesta.
Khasi, Jaintia ago.  Dardic: Kashmir,
and Nicobar  Linguistic view: Eastern Afghanistan,
Island Came from Elam and N. Pakistan.
(SW Iran) around  Indo-Aryan: spoken in
6,000 years ago. India, Pakistan,
 Still spoken in Iran, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, etc.
and Turkmenistan.
 Languages: Tamil,
Telugu, Malayalam.
 Sub-branch: Oraon and
Kurukh spoken in
Jharkhand.
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Note: Both Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman are older than Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages but writing
was not developed in them.

Late or Upper Paleolithic phase:

 Period/Timeline: Between 40,000 BCE -10,000 BCE
 Last phase of the Ice Age when the climate became comparatively warm and less humid.
 In the world context, it marks the appearance of new flint industries and of modern men (Homo Sapiens)
 Flint-sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz was widely used to make stone tools and start
fires.
 This period is marked by innovation in tools and technology.
 Parallel-sided blades, burins and some instances of bone tools were discovered.
 Bone tools were found only at the cave sites of Kurnool and Muchchatla Chintamani Gavi in Andhra
Pradesh.
 Incised ostrich eggshell and stone beads have been found in Andhra Pradesh and Patne in Maharashtra
[Ostriches inhabited India 25000 years ago].
 During the Upper Palaeolithic phase, the paintings were of linear representations, in green and dark red, of
huge animal figures, such as bison, elephants, tigers, rhinos and boars, besides stick-like human figures.
 The green color represented dancers and the red color represented hunters.

Important Findings on Upper Palaeolithic Art and Culture

Sites Findings
Bhimbetka (MP) Earliest known rock art.
Kurnool (AP) Animal teeth may be used as ornaments.
Lohanda Nala Carved bone object may be a female figurine or harpoon.
(Belan valley, UP)
Patne (MH) Ostrich egg shell + Perforated beads
Baghor (MP) Triangular stones (Kol and Baiga tribe still worship as female goddess)
Lakhudiyar (UK) Motifs: stick like a human figure, hand linked dancing human figures.
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Mesolithic Age:
 End of the Ice Age and the Upper Paleolithic Age around 10000 BCE, the climate became warm and dry.
 It was the intermediate stage.
 There were changes in flora and fauna.
 Made it possible for human beings to move to new areas.
 The Mesolithic People lived on hunting, fishing, and food gathering.
 At a later stage, they also domesticated animals
 They practiced primitive agriculture.
 They used fire and perhaps roasted food.
 Lived in semi-permanent/temporary settlements along with occupying caves and open grounds.
 Characteristic Tools: Microliths
 They buried the dead and sometimes with grave goods (belief in life after death).

Microliths:
 Size: 1 cm – 5 cm (Approx)
 Miniature stone tools
 Shapes: Both geometrical and non-geometrical shapes (E.g., Blade, core, point, triangle, trapeze, rhomboid,
lunate, etc.)
 Materials: Crypto-crystalline silica stone. E.g., Chalcedony (for its higher water content + fibrous grain)
 They were not only used as tools in themselves but were also used to make composite tools
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 Spearheads, arrowheads, knives, dagger.

 Sickles after putting them on wooden or bone handles.
 The microliths enabled the Mesolithic man to hunt smaller animals and birds.

Mesolithic Paintings:
 The Mesolithic period witnessed behavioral and social and cultural modernity in Homo Sapiens which
was manifested in the creativity of visual representations, various kinds of artistic skills, and Mesolithic
rock art.
 Artistic skill and the Mesolithic era initiated rock art in prehistory.
 The people of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ages practiced arts.
 Painting was the most remarkable among them.
 Animals dominate the scenes.
 Many birds, animals and human beings are painted.
 No snakes are depicted in Mesolithic paintings.
 Also, certain rock paintings give ideas about the development of religious practice along with reflecting the
division of labor on the basis of gender.
 During the Mesolithic period, the themes were multiple, but the paintings are smaller in size.
 Hunting scenes predominated.
 The hunting scenes depict people hunting in groups, armed with barbed spears, pointed sticks, arrows and
bows.
 In some paintings, these primitive men are shown with traps and snares, probably to catch animals.
 The hunters are shown wearing simple clothes and ornaments.
 In 1867, the first rock paintings in India were discovered at Sohagi Ghat (Kaimur Hills, MP) by an
Archaeologist Archibald Carlleyle 12 years before the discovery of Altamira in Spain (Site of oldest
rock painting in the world).
 Now, over 150 Mesolithic rock art sites have been discovered across India with a rich concentration in Central
India such as:
 Bhimbetka Caves (MP) [In 1957 VS Wakankar, Vikram University, Ujjain]
 Jogimara (MP)
 Kharwar (MP)
 Jaora (MP)
 Kathotia (MP)
 Lakha Juar (MP)
 Sundargarh and Sambalpur (Odisha)
 Ezhuthu Guha (Kerala)
 Lakhudiyar in Uttarakhand
 Kupgallu in Telangana
 Piklihal and Tekkalkotta in Karnataka
 Singanpur near Raigarh (MP) in Kaimur ranges
 Mirzapur district.
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Mesolithic Sites:

 The cultivation of plants around 7000-6000 B.C. is suggested in Rajasthan from a study of the deposits of the
former salt lake, Sambhar and Lunkaransar.
 The Mesolithic culture continued to be important roughly from 9000 B.C. to 6000 B.C.

Additional Information:
 A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface
by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art.
 Other divisions are:
 Pictographs: These are painted onto the surface
 Earth figures: These are formed on the ground
 First discovery of rock paintings in the world was made in India
(1867 68) by an Archaeologist, Archibald Carlleyle, twelve years
before the discovery of Altamira in Spain (site of oldest rock
paintings in the world).

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