Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c9.28

c9.28

Now such industries are characteristic of the final phases of the Palaeolithic in Europe and in certain parts of Western Asia, during the Last Glacial Period. Comparative study of these industries has shown that they are likely to be divisible into three main early groups, all of which originate outside Europe and probably in Western Asia. Of these groups, which in European stratified sites can be shown as representing successive waves of folk-movement westwards, the second is the Aurignacian (formerly known as Middle Aurignacian), and is not known to occur farther east than Palestine and Transcaucasia; but it has been suggested that its point of origin should lie at least as far away as the Iranian plateau, and some of the Chinese industries of the Shuitungkou River suggest that Aurignacian forms may exist there. The third of these early Upper Palaeolithic industries, the Gravettian, is in fact known from sites as far east as Kurdistan, in Northern Iraq, and it is clear that the identification of true blade industries in India, whether or not related to the groups already known, would throw a very considerable light on Upper Palaeolithic problems.