Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c8.s13: Maharashtra
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c8.s13
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Maharashtra
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The position in Maharashtra is not much different. Natural caves are few. However, large openings may be seen at the junction of the two lava flows, for instance in the steep sides of the hills, about eight miles south of Sangamner. But hill slopes, for instance, Dighi⁵⁹ near Poona on the Alandi road, those near the University and the Fergusson College⁶⁰ and the Ellora⁶¹ and Karla⁶² caves are strewn with microliths. At one time, it is difficult to say when or whether these were all workshops of the microlithic man. Veins of agate, chalcedony and quartz criss-cross these basaltic hills and plateaus. Raw material is thus plentiful. It is for us to decide what are tools and what are natural chips. Ninety-nine per cent of any collection will be found to be full of rejects, in which may be found even what are called "bored flakes." These are either natural or artificially removed flakes from cores with natural (full or incomplete) cavities. No evidence is so far available that such bored flakes were ever used by man as ornaments and the like. Cliffs along the rivers Godavari and Pravara right from Nasik and Vite in the west to Paithan in the east, in Nasik and Ahmadnagar Districts were covered during the last aggradation phase with a loose kankary gravel.⁶³ These abound in microliths made principally on milky chalcedony and agate. With a little experience one can easily distinguish these microliths from those of the Chalcolithic period. The former includes short fluted and irregular cores, lunates (some very large), small parallel-sided and one-edged blades, scrapers of several types, and a large number of chips. On the whole these are thicker than the blades etc. of the Chalcolithic facies, whereas those of the still earlier period are still more thick and very often patinated.
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⁵⁹ Deccan College collection and earlier one by GORDON.
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⁶⁰ Deccan College and other private collections in Poona. There are strewn with Middle Stone Age tools.
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⁶¹ Deccan College collection and earlier one by CODRINGTON and GORDON, Man, 1938, p. 22.
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⁶² I.A.R., 1956-57, p. 79.
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⁶³ SANKALIA and others, From History to Prehistory at Nevasa, p. 528. It is possible that this very thin sandy deposit is due to a flood of an unprecedented nature, which while retreating has left such a thin cover on the older silt. Similar phenomenon has been reported from Vidarbha and Madhya Pradesh which experienced floods not known in living memory in the first-second week of September 1961, and while receding have left the fertile lands in these regions with sandy deposits.
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It has not yet been possible to determine the age of this last aggradation which has been a feature of all the rivers in Andhra, Karnatak, Maharashtra, Central India, Saurashtra and Rajputana. If, the evidence from the Singrauli basin⁶⁴ and the recent one from Khandesh⁶⁵ be any guide, then these microliths should be of considerable antiquity.
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⁶⁴ Above
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⁶⁵ I.A.R., 1959-60, p. 88.
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*Salsette Island, Bombay*
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In the Konkan the Salsette island is so far investigated to some extent. Whether we agree with TODD that Kandivli Microlithic culture marks the end of rich cultural sequence beginning with the Early Palaeolithic or not, there is no doubt that this and other sites along the coast and the Thana creek and along the banks of the rivers like the Ulhas in the north and the Amba in the south of Bombay speak of a wide-spread habitation during the microlithic phase.⁶⁶ These people inhabited slightly higher elevated grounds—usually rocks or hillocks and avoided the thicker jungle in the interior. It is likely that they preferred the region because it grows abundance of bananas and coconuts and abounds in fish and fowl. Raw material could be had in the river gravels as well as in the veins of chert, jasper etc. which abound in these hills.
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⁶⁶ TODD, K. R. U. in A.I., No. 8, 1950, pp. 1-16.
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*Tools (See Fig. 60)*
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Hitherto no remains of their temporary camps have been discovered, except microliths. These also contain a few heavier tools like the mace-head or digging weight, chopper, besides a purely geometric microlithic industry. It may, therefore, be divided into an earlier and a later series. The former may be derived from the blade and burin industry, dependent primarily on hunting, while the latter along with geometric forms and heavier tools like the "mace-head" may point towards a food-producing stage. TODD lists the following groups of tools. Microliths (obliquely and wholly blunted, lunates, triangles, trapezes, trapezoids, drills), five types of cores and scrapers, mace-heads and axes.
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Fig. 60
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This figure illustrates (a) microliths from Jabalpur (1-14) and (b) from the Bombay area (15-31) described by the GORDON and TODD respectively.
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(1) Jabalpur 1-5: Triangles 6: Trapeze 7-13: Lunates and asymmetrical points 9, 13: Awl or Borer 10: Symmetrical Point 14: Long blade 15-16: End scrapers
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(2) Bombay Area 17-19: Triangles 20: Trapeze used as "Transverse arrowhead" 21-22: Lunates on asymmetrical Points 24-25: Awls, Borers or Drills 27, 30: Scrapers 26: Burin 31: Micro-burin 32: Ring stone or mace-head Fig. 60. Microliths from Jabalpur (1-16) and Bombay (17-32) (after Gordon and Todd).
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32
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Gujarat
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Gujarat has three different physiographical divisions. Southern Gujarat which is in fact a continuation of Konkan is partly formed by recent alluvium of the rivers and the subsidence in sea level, whereas the eastern portion is hilly and forested and is indeed a part of the Central Indian highlands. Northern Gujarat is supposed to begin from Ahmedabad and continue up to the foothills of the Arvallis. For all this region is covered by masses of wind-blown sand which petrological analysis has shown to be originally river silt,⁶⁷ brought down by the erosion of the Aravallis. However, this feature extends up to Baroda and a little further south.
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⁶⁷ See, KELKAR in SANKALIA, Investigations, pp. 312-8.
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Saurashtra constitutes the third division. It is like the Deccan Maharashtra, mostly a basaltic formation with older geological rocks exposed in the west-north-west around Dwarka, the whole island (or peninsula which was later) ringed by a recent coastal belt.
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Now in all these three divisions ROBERT BRUCE FOOTE⁶⁸ had discovered microliths. To these discoveries a number of new sites were added by the First Gujarat Expedition, mostly from Northern Gujarat. Some more in the Mahi Valley⁶⁹ and in the Banas Valley⁷⁰ have been brought to light by Dr. SUBBARAO and his colleagues in the Baroda University. A number of surface discoveries have been reported from Saurashtra.
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⁶⁸ FOOTE, op. cit., and classified list by SANKALIA, H. D. in Glory that was Gurjaradesa, Part I, 1943, pp. 24-40.
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⁶⁹ Journal M. S. University, Vol. 1, 1952, pp. 54-72.
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⁷⁰ An account of this is not yet published.
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During all this new work, microliths have been found in a stratified context on three or four occasions. Of these the most important are the excavations at Langhnaj⁷¹, a railway station on the meter gauge line between Ambaliyasan and Vijapur in Mehsana District.
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⁷¹ For the latest review, see, SANKALIA, H. D. in JGRS, Vol. XVIII, 1956, pp. 275-84, and references to earlier work therein.