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Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c6.s6: Orissa

Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c6.s6

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English

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Orissa

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Prof. BOSE and Shri SEN of the Calcutta University have been working in Mayurbhanj since 1939 on the clues given by WORMAN and others. This district—formerly a state—is situated on the northern border of Orissa, at the trijunction of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Dr. G. C. MOHAPATRA of the Deccan College between 1957-59 extensively surveyed the valleys of Brahmani and its tributaries in the rest of northern Orissa. The area to the south of the Mahanadi which divides Orissa into two has not yet been examined.

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However, it may be said that practically the whole of Orissa had witnessed the dawn of Stone Age. BOSE and SEN's earlier observations tended to show that Orissa had experienced the same climatic fluctuations which had been formerly observed further south-eastward in Andhra and Madras. Their later investigations suggest that the various deposits at Kamarpal on the river Burhabalang are not the product of a cycle of dry and wet phases. For these are not found over a long stretch of the river and might therefore be due to some local phenomenon.

Burhabalang Valley

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In Mayurbhanj this complication and uncertainty has resulted because the tools are found in a twofold context. All the earlier discoveries since 1875 by BALL were made in laterite, a hard brownish deposit believed to have been formed owing to a period of heavy rain, followed by a dry period (as in Western India today, especially Mahabaleshwar and Matheran or the Konkan). Subsequent discoveries were made in the river gravels, as elsewhere, The most important site is Kamarpal on the Burhabalang in the former state of Mayurbhanj. The cliff section is as follows: III. Thick alluvium or silt (old). II. Boulder conglomerate with laterite pellets below at some places. I. Greyish blue clay overlying a hard, calcareous bed. (The clay contains a few plant fossils).

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At Mukramatia and Mahulia, however, the basal deposits consisting of shale and limestone occur. These were believed to be geologically very early—Miocene. But now some fossils have been detected in the shale band which suggests a Lower Pleistocene age for the formation.

Evolution in Industry

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If these observations which are still tentative are confirmed by further work then it will have a great significance for the Palaeolithic industry of Orissa. For if we now turn to the tools found from Kamarpal and Kuliana it is said that: (i) a majority of the tools from the boulder conglomerate were made on ovalish pebbles by removing a few flakes; (ii) the hand-axes or bifaces were also crudely made, only showing more work; (iii) these hand-axes showed further improvement and resemble Acheulian ones.⁵⁸

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⁵⁸ Summarised from BOSE, NIRMAL KUMAR, "Geological and Cultural Evidences of the Stone Age in Mayurbhanj," *Man in India*, Vol. 28, pp. 49-55.

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Then there is a definite typological evolution. The only weak point in this is that we are not sure whether the lower part of the boulder conglomerate does not contain *any* evolved hand-axes. Were it to contain *only* pebble tools as at Olduvai in East Africa it could have been definitely asserted that in Orissa we have a development of the hand-axe industry from the pebble tools which might be dated to the Lower Pleistocene. As yet there is no site in India where we have undisputed data for such an earlier dating and such evolution.

Brahmani Basin

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However, MOHAPATRA'S⁵⁹ work covering some five districts—Dhenkanal, Sundergadh, Sambalpur, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj—in the Brahmani and several other rivers, as well as an independent study of the sections along the Burhabalang in Mayurbhanj seems to contradict those of BOSE and SEN. He finds "evidence of wet phases separated by three dry phases." (See Fig. 15)

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⁵⁹ MOHAPATRA, G. C., *The Stone Age Cultures of Orissa*, Ph.D. thesis in Archaeology, 1960. Poona University and Deccan College Library. Now published by Deccan College, Poona, 1962.

Climatic Phases

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I. The pleistocene climate starts with a highly wet phase (pluvial) when the primary laterites were formed. The man was absent during this stage.

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II. Then follows a dry phase when the clayish layer was deposited in sluggish rivers (according to BOSE and SEN man's tools might be found in this bed).

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III. A wet phase followed when rivers *first* brought boulders and gravels and later when the climate was becoming drier spread this load as sheet gravel.

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This contains indubitable evidence of man, viz. his tools. These, however, are of a mixed nature—pebble-tools, choppers, crude and refined hand-axes as well as cleavers—all mostly on core, but rarely on flakes.

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IV. In the next dry phase a thick deposit of silt was laid over the gravels. This got weathered giving a reddish appearance, whereas the gravels remaining under water were cemented.

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V. During the following wet phase, the river deposited a thin layer of finer gravel over the existing deposit of gravel and silt. This fine gravel contains smaller tools as elsewhere in India and indicates the existence of a different kind of man and culture. It belongs to the Upper Pleistocene.

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VI. Recent times—called Holocene—were heralded by a drier climate, when the previously deposited silts got weathered red. The present is a period of seasonal floods when the rivers deposit silt, sand and fine gravels in the basin of the river.⁶⁰

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⁶⁰ Bose and others' op cit., statement that the present river also carries huge boulders does not seem to be well founded. This is merely a re-deposit of the older material, that too at a short distance.

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Briefly Orissa had two Stone Ages in the Pleistocene : one Early or Old or Lower Palaeolithic, falling within the Middle Pleistocene (but not in the Lower); the other Middle Stone Age or Palaeolithic, belonging probably to Upper Pleistocene.

Tool Types and Stages

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Since all the tools came from the same layer—either of secondary laterite, for instance, from the quarries at Kuliana⁶¹ or from the conglomerate (called boulder) bed on the Burhabalang and other rivers it is not possible to classify stratigraphically the collection which includes : (i) Hand-axes, (ii) Irregularly flaked bifaces, (iii) Flakes, (iv) Scrapers, (v) Irregularly flaked pebbles, (vi) Cores, (vii) Points. Hence these are classified on the ground of technique and type in three stages.⁶²

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⁶¹ BOSE, NIRMALKUMAR and SEN, DHARANI, Excavations in Mayurbhanj, (University of Calcutta, 1948).

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⁶² MOHAPATRA, op. cit.

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Stage I has tools—hand-axes primarily—which are crude, having a pebble butt, and shows large and deep flake scars, mainly from the tip, and irregular technique.

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Stage II In this group, the tools are better made and there is the evidence of soft-hammer technique, because the flake scars are flatter and thinner. Cleavers appear for the first time.

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Stage III The hand-axes are extremely well proportioned and made mostly by controlled and soft-hammer technique.

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BOSE and SEN also speak of choppers and seem to think that these are of Sohan-type. These, however, are so negligible in number and not at all characteristic of the culture as a whole. These in fact seem to form along with flakes an invariable concomitant of the hand-axe culture.

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MOHAPATRA makes a special mention of smaller tools, particularly hand-axes⁶² and points in Stages II and III respectively and infers that these herald the arrival of the Middle Stone Age Culture or tradition. While this may be so, it has got to be remembered that the collection is all one, and the presence of these highly advanced forms may suggest that it is a mixed collection, probably of a late period in the Lower Palaeolithic.

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⁶² These are being found elsewhere in India as well, and were also found in England in the last century.

Cites (2)