Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s2.16

c6.s2.16

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.