Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c7.s7: Mode of Occurrence
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c7.s7
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Mode of Occurrence
c7.s7.1
Before turning to the tool-types, one other point needs clarification. These tools are often found in fields with black or brown soil (as in Central India around Maheshwar, Kasrawad, Choli and Kurnool), and therefore it was at one time thought that these being surface occurrences, are late. Very often the tools occurred together with microliths. Hence they were thought to be microlithic. Careful observations in three regions—parts of Maharashtra, Central India, and Andhra—have shown that wherever the soil cover is thin and immediately overlies the gravels, or wherever there are veins of jasper and chert, with factory sites, as for instance at Dongargaon and Choli near Maheshwar, or Khadki Mata near Mandasor, the black soil which is a later formation—is full of nodules, cores, and large flakes and tools of Middle Palaeolithic industry.13c
c7.s7.2
13c Many more factory sites have been discovered elsewhere on the Narbada and in Ahmadnagar District. *I.A.R.*, 1960-61, p. 60 and p. 19.
c7.s7.3
Since the Microlithic and the Chalcolithic cultures succeeded—though after a long time—the Middle Palaeolithic, and their practitioners occupied the same sites, at some places only we find an admixture of several cultural groups. But this in no way indicates the lateness of all the tools.