Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s2.19

c6.s2.19

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.