Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c8.s10: Andhra
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c8.s10
- Language
- English
Contents
- c8.s10.t1 Mode of Occurrence — 1 part
- c8.s10.t2 Nature of microliths — 4 parts
Andhra
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Further south in Andhra a large number of discoveries have been made since the last century. Of these the most important are the notices by FOOTE⁴⁶ and CAMMIADE⁴⁷ supplemented by later observers like SUBBARAO,⁴⁸ SOUNDARA RAJAN⁴⁹ and ISAAC.⁵⁰ Not only the range is widened, but more specific information is now available regarding the manner in which microliths occur and their typological nature.
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⁴⁶ FOOTE, Indian Prehistoric and Protohistoric Antiquities.
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⁴⁷ CAMMIADE, op. cit., and CAMMIADE and BURKITT in *Antiquity*, No. IV, 1930, p. 338.
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⁴⁸ *Stone Age Cultures of Bellary*, Poona, 1948, and *Prehistoric and Early Historic Bellary*, Ph.D. thesis, 1949, University of Bombay and Deccan College Libraries.
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⁴⁹ SOUNDARA RAJAN, in *A.I.*, No. 14, 1958, pp. 50, and 90-8.
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⁵⁰ ISAAC, *The Stone Age Cultures of Kurnool*, Ph.D. thesis in the University of Poona and Deccan College Libraries, 1960.
Mode of Occurrence
c8.s10.t1.1
Briefly, microliths are found on surface, generally on high ground, on the river banks in the top-most deposits of fine loose sandy gravel, in and around granitoid rock shelters as well as in the vicinity of caves in the limestone and sandstone formations in Kurnool District. Some sites overlook a waterfall and it is quite conceivable that these were the temporary camps of microlithic people.
Nature of microliths
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It also appears that as in Maharashtra, Mysore and Central India we can classify the microliths into (a) true microliths of Mesolithic type and period and (b) Short parallel-sided blades etc. To the former belong microliths which SUBBARAO found in his excavations at Sangankallu in Phase I and those discovered by SOUNDARA RAJAN at Nagarjunakonda in Guntur District, by ISAAC and CAMMIADE in Kurnool and elsewhere, for instance, near Pondicherry⁵¹ in the red soil away from the sea coast. Of course, with more systematic work, further clarification will follow.
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⁵¹ See, ZEUNER, F. E. and ALLCHIN, BRIDGET in *A.I.*, No. 12, 1958, pp. 4-20. The writer got a few microliths from the late Prof. JOUVEAU-DUBREUIL as far as back 1940. And his examination later of the *teris* makes him feel that it is like the Teri area.
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Thus at present it is difficult to say how these microliths, though mostly from the surface, are related to those from the *teris* of South India. For the present we have a classification of CAMMIADE’S vast collection⁵² into geometric and non-geometric microliths, though as yet a well-defined stratigraphical correlation alludes us. The industry comprises parallel-sided blades, lunates, triangles, trapezes, scrapers, backed blades and burins.
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⁵² CAMMIADE and BURKITT, op. cit., p. 338.