The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c13.1

c13.1

Prehistory is unfortunately the least developed branch of Indian archaeology, in spite of its early beginnings, from 1863, when Foote discovered the first palaeoliths in the lateritic pits at Pallavaram. Except in two or three areas, our knowledge predominately rests on typology, and unless we establish a stratigraphic sequence for these industries we will not carry forward the bounds of our knowledge. In the West, very rapid progress was made with the cooperation of all the Natural sciences and it is hoped that this cooperation will not be sought in vain in this country too. The development of prehistoric studies in any country depends on the progress of general pleistocene studies by the geologists and the palaeontologists. It is very gratifying to see that a good beginning in coordinated research has been made since 1957.¹ Besides the recent discoveries in the Pravara basin and studies in the Narbada basin, rapidly call for fresh studies in Pleistocene palaeontology. In view of the environmental diversity and the magnitude of the country, we will not be justified in blindly extending the Siwalik chronology to Central and Southern India. For example, the extensive studies carried out in the Himalayas and the Siwaliks prepared the back-ground for the success of the Yale-Cambridge expedition. It is not our purpose here to summarize the work done in different parts of the country. But it is proposed to review critically the main sequence of industries and relate them to the "Early, Middle and Late Stone Ages" in India adopting the terminology suggested in this book.