Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c6.s2.t2: Beas and Banganga Valleys
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c6.s2.t2
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Beas and Banganga Valleys
c6.s2.t2.1
Then in 1955, Shri B. B. LAL,³⁹ found Sohan type of tools in the Beas and Banganga valleys in Kangra District, East Panjab. He also noticed five terraces at Guler and elsewhere, and tried to correlate the tools with the terraces. Later a joint expedition organized by the Government of India and assisted by the Deccan College, the M. S. University of Baroda and the Geological Survey of India re-examined the area for some three weeks in 1957.
c6.s2.t2.2
³⁹ "Palaeoliths from the Beas and Banganga Valleys," A.I. No. 12, pp. 58-92.
c6.s2.t2.3
There is no doubt that at Guler, Dehr and at Kangra there are a number of terraces. Those at Guler, for instance are at a height of 565 ft. (T.1), 375 ft. (T.2), 150 ft. (T.3), 90 ft. (T.4) and 30 ft. (T.5) respectively. T.1 yielded only unifacial "choppers", while T.2 these as well as "chopping tools" and one pebble-hand-axe, a core and six Clactonian flakes and proto-Levalloisian flakes, while T. 3 gave similar material but without the proto-Levalloisian flakes.
c6.s2.t2.4
The tools thus are of the Early Sohan type, though it must be said that the percentage of genuine tools is indeed very small,⁴⁰ and many of the choppers on pebbles and flakes might be just pebbles and flakes.
c6.s2.t2.5
⁴⁰ This impression was confirmed when the writer along with B. SUBBARAO re-examined the collection, now in the Safdarjang Museum, New Delhi, with the facilities kindly supplied by Shri LAL and Shri GHOSH.
c6.s2.t2.6
Further south-westwards the Ganga-Yamuna basin has not yet been studied. The writer had noticed terraces at Dehra Dun and huge boulder spread as well as sections, and it is not improbable that a careful search will yield the types of tools first described.
c6.s2.t2.7
³⁴ SEN, op. cit., p. 184.
c6.s2.t2.8
³⁵ This indeed recalls the "borer-cum-scraper" of Series II or the Middle Palaeolithic of Peninsular India. See, Figs. 88-89.