Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c10.2

c10.2

It was mentioned before (pp. 75, 79 and Fig. 36, p. 80) while discussing the stratigraphical position of Series II or Middle Stone Age tools that these occur in a gravel and silt which lie, according to the writer's observation in several regions of India, against the older palaeolithic gravel and silt terrace. Further and indeed very convincing confirmation of this view is available on the right bank of the Mutha river at Poona. Here after the writer discovered the stratified section containing Early Stone Age tools in the olive-green pebble gravel capped by nearly 25 ft. of silt at the Bund Garden, the section was further traced downstream for nearly half a mile and more tools were obtained. His colleagues were asked to search for a similar tool section upstream on the Mutha. And a mile-long section was found by Shri S. N. Rajguru at Lakdi Pul in the heart of the old Poona. This section begins just behind the Alka Talkies and terminates at the Dhobi Ghat near the new township of Datta Wadi. Further, a broad terrace is seen on the opposite bank at Vithalwadi, as at Vite on the Pravara. At the Dhobi Ghat one finds two gravels and two silt deposits. The older gravel not only contains olive-green, large and small basalt and dolerite pebbles and tools, but it is weathered orange-red and is capped by a dark brown calcareous silt. This deposit was partly eroded subsequently and in the hollow so caused lies the younger gravel, characterized by cross bedding, chalcedony nodules, ashy colour, and is not well cemented. Further it is capped by a light brown silt. This is of very rare occurrence and is seen by the author at Kasord Nala, near Maheshwar and at Devkachar, near Narsimhapur and opposite the Sagauna Ghat on the Narmada (See Appendix B) only. Thus we have two definite terraces, an older one about 35 ft. high, and a younger one about 27 ft. high. A small patch of the younger terrace now remains. It is collapsing, as at the Hathi Well section at Nevasa. Traces of this second and younger terrace gravel alone have remained at Bel Pandhari and Kalegaon on the Godavari. A careful search, however, might reveal such sections elsewhere as well.