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Blade and Burin Industries near Renigunta on the South-East Coast of India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

M. L. K. Murty
M. L. K. Murty
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Deccan College, Poona
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Extract

During the first quarter of this century, not much was known about the Indian Stone Ages and only two phases, Palaeolithic and Neolithic (including microliths), were recognized. Some of the earlier discoveries recorded by Robert Bruce Foote, Coggin Brown, Cammiade, Miles Burkitt, De Terra, Paterson and others gave an impetus for the later researchers and the Stone Age cultural sequence began to take a clear shape. The most significant among the later discoveries is the identification of a distinct culture by H. D. Sankalia, which is now designated as the Middle Stone Age, and the extent of its distribution is now well established. Prehistorians who launched a systematic survey unearthed the remnants of the stone using populations from different parts of the country, viz., the Panjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Mysore, Andhra Pradesh and Madras recognizing three phases, The Early Stone Age, the Middle Stone Age and the Late Stone Age, occupying the time span of Pleistocene and Early Holocene times.

The material culture that represents the Stone Age Communities in various parts of the country displays a homogeneous pattern of development. The Early Stone Age is followed by the Middle Stone Age which in most of the regions gave way to the Late Stone Age; however, a blade and burin industry with a discontinuous horizontal distribution is known in a few regions between the Middle and Late Stone Ages.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 34 , February 1969 , pp. 83 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1969

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References

page 84 note 1 Sankalia, H. D., Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan, 1962, p. 64Google Scholar.

page 84 note 2 Gupta, S. P., Comments on ‘Middle Stone Age Culture in India and Pakistan’ by Sankalia, H. D., in Misra, V. N. and Mate, M. S. (eds.), Indian Prehistory: 1964, 1965, p. 47Google Scholar.

page 84 note 3 Ibid., 1965, p. 48.

page 84 note 4 A. K. Ghosh, Ibid., 1965, p. 49.

page 84 note 5 S. P. Gupta, Comments on ‘Mesolithic Phase in the Prehistory of India’, by V. N. Misra, Ibid., 1965, p. 82.

page 84 note 6 Ghosh, A. K. et al. , Indian Archaeology 1965–1966—A Review, p. 16Google Scholar.

page 84 note 7 A. K. Ghosh, op. cit., 1965, p. 49.

page 84 note 8 G. R. Sharma et al., Explorations in Allahabad, Mirzapur, Shahajahanpur districts (unpublished report).

page 84 note 9 Indian Archaeology 1965–1966—A Review, pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

page 87 note 1 G. J. Wainwright by his studies on sea level changes in the Lower Narmada valley of Gujarat has assigned the Upper Pleistocene age for the implementiferous gravels. The radio-carbon dates for the two samples from the buried channel (10 metres below the present bed) of the Mula river near Baragaon, Nandur, in the Ahmednagar district, Maharastra are 39,000 B.P. and 31,075 ± 1310 years B.P., respectively. From the geomorphic studies of the Godavary basin and the C-14 dates mentioned above, G. G. Majumdar and S. N. Rajaguru of the Deccan College are inclined to assign the Upper Pleistocene Age to the alluvium, partly exposed and partly buried, in the Godavary basin. If the C-14 dates are regarded as authentic, the Early Stone Age industry found in the Pravara and Godavary alluvium will have to be placed in the Upper Pleistocene period. See Pappu, R. S., Pleistocene Studies in the Upper Krishna Basin, Ph.D. Thesis, Poona University and Deccan College Libraries, 1966, p. 124Google Scholar.

These investigations may possibly indicate a shorter time-spread for the Early Stone Age industry, i.e. though it appeared or originated in the Upper Pleistocene times it flourished for a shorter period unlike in Europe or Africa. They may not push further the Middle and Late Stone Ages, since the available C-14 dates for these two phases are more reliable.

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page 96 note 2 The number of specimens of each tool type is given in brackets.

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page 97 note 3 H. D. Sankalia, op. ctt., 1962, p. 119.

page 97 note 4 De Terra, H. and Paterson, T. T., Studies on the Ice Age in India and Associated Human Cultures, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Publication no. 4, 1939, p. 320Google Scholar.

page 97 note 5 Sankalia, H. D. et al. , Excavations at Maheswar and Navadatoli, 1952–53, 1958, pp. 37–41Google Scholar.

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page 99 note 1 Rouse, Irving, ‘The Strategy of Culture History’, in Kroeber, A. L. (ed.), Anthropology Today, 1952, p. 71Google Scholar.

page 99 note 2 Rands, Robert L. and Riley, Carrol L., ‘Diffusion and Discontinuous Distribution’, American Anthropologist, vol. 60, 1958, pp. 274–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 99 note 3 Ibid., p. 275.

page 99 note 4 Ibid., p. 277. Note also: ‘It is indeed possible that even in cases of continuous distribution, independent elaboration of a given complex may take place. When the distribution is unbroken one would normally expect to find a sizable number of individual traits diffused throughout the area. Nevertheless the mechanisms of convergence and parallelism may be expected to operate even here. If the complex is present throughout a culture area independent parallel elaboration of it surely will sometimes derive from the common cultural base’, (p. 294.)