The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c15.s1.t1: Prehistory
The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c15.s1.t1
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Prehistory
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Prehistory is the most undeveloped of all the branches of Indian archaeology. Except in two or three areas, our evidence predominantly rests on typology, and unless we can establish stratigraphic basis for this succession, we will not carry forward the bounds of our knowledge. But from the large amount of surface collection a sufficiently plausible scheme of things is emerging, but it remains to be verified and demonstrated.
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About the *Early Stone Age*, we have a good idea of the nature and extent of the cultures, but their inter-relation and chronology await further work. While the peri-glacial zones show a predominant pebble "chopper-chopping" cultures, the Peninsular portions of our sub-continent show predominantly an industry characterized by the hand-axes and cleavers. A wide-
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अळ्ळकरस पतिट्ठानं पुरिमं महिस्सति तदा।
उज्जेनिलवापि गोनद्धं वेदिसां वनसाह्वयम् ॥ ३६
कोसाम्बीन चापि साकेतं सावत्थिन च पुरत्तमम् ।
सेतव्यं कपिलवत्थुं कुसिनारञ्च मन्दिरम् ॥ ३७
पावाञ्च भोगिनगरं वैसालिं मगधापुरम् ।
पासनकञ्च चेतियं च रमणीयं मनोरमम् ॥ ३८
सुत्तनिपात ५. १. ३६-३८
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spread uniformity emerges at the end of this age with the appearance of the "Prepared platform" or the Levallois technique. Several attempts have been made to establish climatic cycles. Unless our techniques improve with a greater use of natural and physical sciences, we will not go forward.
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The next phase is characterized by an equally widespread industry of scrapers, blade, burin and borer in fine grained materials like chert, jasper, agate etc., and it also seems to be derived from a Levallois tradition, as in Africa. Its stratigraphy is perfectly clear in the Narbada valley, the Bombay area and the Pravara and Godavary valleys. Here again, there is no place for complacency; the need is for more and more stratigraphic studies. This has been designated as Middle Stone Age.
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The third phase of Indian Prehistory, called here, the Late Stone Age, is also becoming clearer. The identification and elimination of the Blade industry at Maheshvar and the origin of this technique, by the writer, has removed a major snag in our attempts at understanding the large quantities of what are indiscriminately called 'microliths' (Fig. 38). Hence the field is clear and we see distinctly two horizons of Microlithic industry—Geometric and non-Geometric. In certain areas, Tinnevelly and Birbhanpur, we have evidence of a considerable antiquity for this microlithic industry without the association of pottery. In both the areas geological and pedalogical evidence has been adduced to demonstrate their antiquity. Similar non-geometric industries occur in the Chakradharpur area and a few other areas.
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Similarly there is an equally widespread distribution of Geometric microlithic industries all over the continent. We have not yet got positive evidence, that these succeeded the non-geometric, but typology suggests it and nothing more will be said at this stage. Again pottery is never associated with the non-geometric industries. As in tropical Africa, these microlithic industries which are generally supposed to fit into an environment with light vegetation, have been perfectly adapted to a life of hunting and fishing in jungle areas. Curiously, nothing resembling an arrow-head or even bi-facially retouched point, has ever been produced in the country, except in the remote Tinnevelly (probably as a result of contact with Ceylon). Yet the asymmetric point with a strong central ridge and a thick back, may be a substitute, as suggested by Zeuner. In a tropical country with forests, a wood, probably with a burnt tip can be equally effective. It is this very adaptation of these primitive hunting communities to a thickly vegetated forests and hills that led to a cultural diversity in the Neolithic period. In certain areas with very little agricultural potential, these cultures survived. Probably they were also driven out into these unfavourable environments by the agricultural communities themselves. Hence we see in areas like Gujarat, Malwa and Maharashtra, these hunting communities survived till they were displaced by their brethren who came with heavy metal tools or stone tools. Finally in the areas of isolation, this hunting-fishing economy might have lasted still longer!
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INDIA & PAKISTAN MAP SHOWING SOME OF THE FIND SPOTS OF CHALCOLITHIC BLADE INDUSTRY
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The Neolithic period, the last stage of Indian prehistory really brings into lime-light the environmental diversities within the country. These primitive agriculturists domesticated cattle and cultivated the fields around their hills in tropical and semi-tropical scrub jungles. As they depended on basalt or diorite for their stone tools, they preferred the Gneissic-metamorphic areas of the country and the foot hills of the Vindhyas. While Neolithic agricultural communities began in the Indo-Iranian borderlands in the early 4th millennium B.C., they survived in Central Deccan till about a 1000 B.C.
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Sometime in the later half of the 2nd millennium B.C. (depending on the Chinese evidence) or even later, a wave of Austro-Asiatic or Proto-Australoid elements penetrated into India from the east. We have a large distribution of their typical shouldered celt or adzes with oblong sections. But let it be stated here, that there exists a general opinion, that the sawn axes of South-east Asia, and the oblong or square axes of that region and Eastern India represent an adoption in stone by the primitive people of metal tools of their more fortunate brethren. A similar attempt has been made to connect certain stone celts and copper bar celts from the Gangetic basin. These indicate the co-existence of both these cultures—Copper age folk in the plains and Stone age folk in the uplands. A study of culture contacts between the Plain Indians and the White settlers of North America by Hodges¹ has shown how the traders, the trappers, who penetrated into the interior for barter of fur and hides, tried to copy the Indian tool forms in steel to make them more acceptable. "The process of translating stone and antler proto-types into metal, and these back into stone, is not in itself very remarkable, and in principle could be repeated ad nauseum".
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¹ HODGES, H. W. M. "Braves, Beakers and Battle-axes", *Antiquity*, XXI, 1957, p. 142.
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Thus it seems with the advent of the copper technology, the semi-tropical river valleys with their swamps and marshes, were cleared and drained. This meant a displacement of the earlier Neolithic people. Hence in the forested hills of Vindhyas and Chota Nagpur plateau, we see congeries of so-called Neolithic tools (peninsular elliptical-section type as well as the square-axe type). Thus, some of the later Neolithic folk, like the earlier batch of hunting communities, were consigned to the hills with the advent of large scale agricultural communities in the main river basins. These unfortunate folk were the precursors of most of our tribal people.
Cites (1)
- Suttanipāta — Pāli