Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s2: Northern India
Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s2
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Northern India
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In northern India (Kashmir and the Punjab), as in Europe, the Pleistocene was an epoch of intermittent glaciation and, again as in Europe, four main advances of the ice have been recognized. It is likely but unproved that the Himalayan and the Alpine series approximate to one another in time, and may be equated in tropical India with pluvials or phases of extreme rainfall.
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Towards the middle of the Pleistocene occurred the second of the four Himalayan glaciations, and the Boulder Conglomerate which represents it* has yielded the earliest tools of Stone Age India on sites in the sub-Himalayan valleys of the Indus and its tributary the Soan (or Sohan), in the so-called Potwar Area centred about Rawalpindi.¹ With the tools have been found bones of *Elephas namadicus*, which help incidentally to link these deposits with others on the Narbadā and Godāvarī of central India.
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¹ The sequence here followed is that of de Terra and Paterson. For a suggested variation, see F. E. Zeuner, *Dating the Past* (4th ed. London, 1958), pp. 274-7. The available evidence is admittedly inconclusive.
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These early implements, which have been christened 'Pre-Soan', are worthy of their lowly position in the human scale. They are characteristically big flakes or split pebbles of quartzite, with large unfaceted striking-platforms mostly at angles of 100-125 degrees and with large, flat but well-marked cones of percussion. Their upper surface is usually unflaked, and there is no secondary working. Their primitive quality is enhanced by the native intractability of the material; furthermore, they are mostly very worn, and the edges are often battered either by use or by natural attrition. Many of them are recognizable as artifacts only by the trained eye, assisted by their association with more distinctive specimens, and it may be suspected that even the trained eye is not always impeccable.
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Following the second glaciation was a prolonged interglacial phase—the Second Interglacial—during which the Boulder Conglomerate was partially eroded and redeposited as a covering on Terrace 1. In this Terrace two new industries make their first appearance: (i) the 'Early Soan', a pebble and flake industry which has been subdivided typologically but consists broadly of chopping and scraping tools; and (ii) a handaxe or 'Madras' industry consisting of more or less ovate tools worked on both faces. In both of the Soan groups occur worn and deeply patinated specimens, but their complete absence from the undisturbed Conglomerate suggests that they belong truly to various stages of the succeeding interglacial phase represented by Terrace 1.
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Fig. 4
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The flakes of the Early Soan include examples with plain high-angled Clactonian platforms, and others with faceted low-angled platforms recalling the early Levalloisian. Retouch is absent. The pebble choppers and scrapers are made in both the fashions described on p. 35. No fauna has been associated with this phase.
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During the third of the four glaciations, Terrace 2 was formed in a process of aggradation represented by a basal gravel and a thick overlying deposit of loess or silt, known sometimes as the 'Potwar Loess'. Teeth of horse and dog (or wolf) have been extracted from this loess, but statements that camel and ox have also been found in it require confirmation.
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The 'Late Soan' industry recovered from this Terrace is of two phases, equating with the two component strata. Phase A, from the basal gravel, is largely an extension of the pebble industry of the Early Soan, and is particularly characterized by rough oval pebbles with untouched butt along one side and flaking along the opposite side, though sometimes from each surface alternately, thus producing a wavy edge, straight or convex. Phase B, from the overlying loess, has produced recognizable workshop-sites with fresh tools, consisting mainly of flakes comparable with the Late Levalloisian of Europe, though including some pebble-choppers and cores as in Phase A. It was observed that there was an evolving tendency towards smaller and more finely made types. ‘In the early stages [of the Soan industry] the flakes are crude. In the late Soan alongside the simple forms there are other flakes showing a development in technique, with much more regular primary flaking and often with faceted platforms.’
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Fig. 5
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It is noteworthy that the Late Soan seems normally to be devoid of handaxes. This statement, however, needs modification if in fact the Soan site of Chauntra (20 miles south of Rawalpindi), which has produced a mixture of Madras and Soan pebble elements, is of the succeeding third interglacial age from Terrace 3. More evidence is required. From Terraces 4 and 5 no significant material has been recorded; in any event Terrace 5 is of post-Pleistocene age.
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In recent years (1951-55) other ‘Soan’ distributions have been found in the Himalayan foothills of the Punjab: in the upper valley of the Sirsa, a tributary of the Sutlej, 30 miles west of Simla, and near Daulatpur in Hoshiarpur District 25 miles north of Jullundur. More important are B. B. Lal’s observations in the upper valley of the Beas, with its tributary the Bāngangā, in the Kangra District 230 miles north-northwest of Delhi.¹ Four sites are named: Guler, Dehra, Dhaliara and Kangra itself. At Guler five river-terraces have been identified, though whether they are equivalent to the Kashmir-Potwar series has not been determined. Again, only the three higher (earlier) terraces produced implements, all of quartzite. Terrace 1 yielded unifacial choppers, a bifacial chopping-tool, and Clactonian flakes, but no handaxes. The workmanship is crude; the choppers consist of roughly sharpened pebbles, but the more evolved pebble-tool, approximating to a handaxe, is absent. From Terrace 2, more choppers were recovered, with a pebble-handaxe, Clactonian flakes, and two others which are reasonably described as proto-Levalloisian, with due allowance for the difficulty of the material. Both the pebble-handaxe and the proto-Levalloisian flakes seem to mark an advance upon the industry of Terrace 1. On Terrace 3 were at least seven unifacial choppers and two Clactonian flakes, and either from Terrace 2 or Terrace 3 came another proto-Levalloisian flake, a pebble-handaxe, and two bifacial implements which were, with some hesitation, regarded as genuine handaxes, distinguished perhaps with an excessive nicety as Abbevillian and Acheulian respectively. Both handaxes, if such they be, are rolled and worn. On the whole, the sequence from these three terraces is not in conflict with that from the Potwar area.
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Fig. 3 Late Soan industry: 1-6, cores; 7, chopper; 8-12, cores; 13-15, Levalloisian flakes.
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Farther south, in Rajasthan and Mālwā, a number of sites in the valleys of the Chambal river and its tributaries, particularly in Chitorgarh district, have produced Palaeolithic assemblages which seem to fall stratigraphically into two series.¹⁴ The earlier of these, Series I, included handaxes and cleavers of the Madras industry in association with Clactonian flakes and choppers of the Soan industry. A later gravel contained Series II, characterized by Levallois flakes with prepared striking-platforms, and hollow and blade-scrapers, but devoid alike of choppers and handaxes. The occurrence of occasional flake-tools of Series II in deposits of Series I suggested to the explorers a more or less continuous occupation with changing needs and modes. Away to the east, the Jumna valley in the Banda district of Uttar Pradesh is reported to have produced a comparable tool-sequence in so far as handaxes were followed by Levallois flakes, but apparently without the admixture of Soan choppers.
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The next region towards the south where serious study of the Old Stone Age has been undertaken lies along the three main rivers which empty into the Gulf of Cambay—the Sabarmati, the Mahi and the Narbadā (or Narmadā)—and about the upper reaches of the Godāvarī, which nearly bisects the peninsula.¹⁶ Eastward the area of investigation has been extended to the valleys of the Kaimūr Range south of Banaras. The whole of this transcontinental region shows an interesting overlap between the flake-and-pebble industries on the one hand and the handaxe-cleaver series on the other, with an emergent hint of later Palaeolithic groups of which the full significance is not yet adequately understood. Here too, if anywhere, is it likely that an equation or compromise between the plurials of the tropics and the glaciations of the Himālayas may eventually be postulated;¹⁶ but much further fieldwork, geological and archaeological, must precede this happy result. Indian research is already busy in the matter.
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The great Narbadā valley¹⁷ must have been a superb hunting-ground for Palaeolithic man, as it is for the modern explorer in his tracks. Its geological structure, so far as we are concerned, consists in the central reaches of two sedimentary deposits, a Lower and an Upper, comprising gravel capped with clay and sand; they overlie a thick deposit of laterite (see below) and are covered by the dark alluvial 'regur' or 'cotton soil' familiar to travellers in central and southern India. The junctions between these successive formations are well marked, and the Lower group, with extension into the gravels of the Upper group, has produced bones of a mid-Pleistocene fauna including *Bos namadicus*, *Elephas namadicus* and *Bubalus palaeindicus*. It may be recalled that *Elephas namadicus* has been found likewise in the Boulder Conglomerate which yielded the earliest (Pre-Soan) flake implements of the sub-Himalayan Potwar area, and thus provides a useful palaeontological link between the two regions. It is appropriate that the earliest vestiges of Narbadā man are likewise contemporary with the formation of the Lower Narbadā group, and that they include an industry comparable with the Pre-Soan.
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With the large flakes of Pre-Soan type, however, the Lower Narbadā group—unlike the Potwar Boulder Conglomerate—contains an appreciable handaxe industry, represented by heavily rolled Abbevillian implements and both rolled and unworn Acheulian tools. In the Upper group the handaxes seem to be less at home; they are predominantly rolled Acheulian and are thought to be confined to the basal gravel of the group. They may therefore be wholly or largely derivative. In any event, the characteristic industry of the Later group resembles the Late Soan, and consists of small discoidal cores, pebble cores, pebble choppers and beaked tools.
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The interpretation of these resemblances and discrepancies between northern and central India is not easy. Nor is it facilitated by more recent observation in the Sabarmati valley.¹⁸ There, in the main gravel, it is noted by Dr. Sankalia that crude pebble-implements occur alongside more finished types which include Acheulian handaxes of latish appearance. There are also numerous flakes, though rarely with the faceted striking-platform suggestive, as might be expected from the northern evidence, of a Levalloisian technique. Typologically, this complex assemblage could be divided into a sequence of cultures beginning with pre-Abbevillian, but there is no stratigraphical warrant for this and it must be assumed that the various types were approximately contemporary.
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The problem is again illustrated but not solved in a tributary system of the river Son, the Singrauli basin, of Mirzapur District in the Kaimur Range south of Banaras.¹⁹ Here a bed of redeposited Pleistocene gravel, covered by 5 feet of alluvial silt and humus and overlying a layer of sand upon a deep Boulder Conglomerate, has produced a series of quartzite implements which include about 43 per cent of handaxes and cleavers and about 15 per cent of pebble-and-core chopping tools. There are also numerous flakes of which a fair proportion (some 26 per cent of the collection) may be described as proto-Levallois, or even unqualified Levallois, with faceted platforms. The pebble-tools recall the Early Soan 'chopper' industry and may be so classified. The bifacial handaxes are of Abbevillio-Acheulian or Madras types, some of them exhibiting all-over controlled flaking, with a more or less tongue-shaped point. The cleavers are straight-edged and round-butted, with oblique cutting-edge.
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It should be emphasized that there was no apparent stratigraphic division between the pebble and the biface industries in this deposit. The pebble-tools were thought to be rather more worn than the bifaces, many of which were fresh in appearance; but this is the only hint of a differential chronology, and for the present the whole series must be regarded as approximately contemporary. No associated fauna is recorded.