Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s30: Prehistory in India
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s30
- Language
- English
Prehistory in India
c4.s30.1
Prehistory in India began none too late. The first tool—a ground or polished stone axe was found by MEADOWS TAYLOR at Lingsugur in 1842, though ROBERT BRUCE FOOTE discovered the first palaeolith at Pallavaram near Madras in 1863; so did BALL in 1875 at some four sites in Orissa and HACKETT at Bhutra on the Narmada in 1873 and WYNNE at Mungi-Paithan on the Godavari in 1865 and COCKBURN in the Singrauli basin, South Mirzapur, in 1883.
c4.s30.2
BURN'S, HACKETT'S and WYNNE'S finds were associated with extinct animal bones.
c4.s30.3
But except FOOTE nobody systematically carried on the search. Whereas sporadic discoveries continued to be made, he alone for nearly 40 years explored the rivers of Madras, Andhra, Mysore, Karnatak and Gujarat, while attending to his main work as consulting geologist. Not only he amassed a vast collection, but classified and catalogued it. This has been published by the Madras Museum. Thus FOOTE combined in himself the work of THOMSEN, WORSAAE and BOUCHER de PERTHES. He was the true pioneer of Indian Prehistory.
c4.s30.4
Unfortunately his work was not followed up, either by the Department of Archaeology or by the Universities. It was indeed sad, but in truth nobody was to be blamed. Though in India we were not shackled by the Biblical notion of the antiquity of the world, the political, social and cultural atmosphere which had manifested itself in Europe was completely absent in India. Therefore these early discoveries did not take root.