Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s24: Palaeontology and Archaeology
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s24
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Palaeontology and Archaeology
c4.s24.1
DE MORTILLET went a step further. Combining this basis of classification with the archaeological, he divided the whole development into *Times, Ages, Periods and Epochs*. Tertiary, Quaternary, Recent, Prehistory, Protohistory and History were the broad divisions of Time; the Ages were those of Stone, Bronze and Iron, and the Periods Eolithic, Palaeolithic and Neolithic, and the Epochs were the smaller divisions of each Period.
c4.s24.2
His epochs such as the *Chellean, Acheulian, Solutrean* which were after the local French sites were supposed to indicate small periods in human history when man used only Chellean types of tools. Such an extension of a purely local French cultural manifestation into other areas in France or to other countries of Europe was not justified. For it implied parallel or synchronous development of cultures all over the world.
c4.s24.3
This concept vitiated the principle of regional and geographical differences, which was then discovered by students of human geography and cultural anthropologists. It has now been realized that not only one has to provide for varying human needs and development on broad regional bases, but the same locality—for instance a site in South of France²² or in England²³—may exhibit different cultural relics according to the seasonal climatic changes²¹ and one may even talk of "summer and winter archaeology". Thus the former (new) theories about separate but parallel existence of Flake Cultures and Core Cultures are under scrutiny and it is quite possible that this view will be soon abandoned.
c4.s24.4
²¹ See *Bonnes* in *Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society* for 1950, New Series, Vol. XXII, 1957, p. 5.
c4.s24.5
²² CLARK, J.G.D., *Excavations at Starr Car*, Cambridge, 1954.
c4.s24.6
²³ CLARK, GRAHAME, *Archaeology and Society*, London, 1957.
c4.s24.7
New connotations of the Three Age system were advocated by culture historians and anthropologists. When new types of tools etc. were found in different associations, the differences were sought to be explained by the arrival of new people or ideas. And at times these supposed new arrivals were named after the site, or from tradition or given well-known racial names. This identification of a prehistoric industry or culture with this or that race or people is extremely hazardous. At best, the name of the type-site might be given—such as "Harappan" after Harappa. The diffusionist theory did one good. It gave a blow to the epochal theory of DE MORTILLET of parallel and uniform development all over the world.
c4.s24.8
But if we now ask "when was it that man began to produce his own food, that is, learnt cultivating grains and fruit and ceased to be a hunter and nomad, living on wild fruits, vegetables and game?" can we demarcate the stages and correlate them with chronological development as envisaged by archaeology?