Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s3.9

c6.s3.9

Above the laterite-stained pebble-bed which produced the handaxes, a red clay laid down under renewed pluviation yielded flakes ('Series 2'), and other sites in the region are marked by flake-industries at an equivalent horizon. Handaxes are now the exception. Some of the flakes have prepared striking-platforms, others have not. Occasional examples may fairly be described as burins; one as 'a double-ended burin of a very Upper Palaeolithic appearance'. Whilst this post-handaxe series must represent (a part of) the later Palaeolithic of peninsular India, it is at the best a crude product, at a lower level of technical achievement than either the best handaxes and cleavers of 'Series 1', or the more slender backed-blades, planing-tools, end-scrapers, core-scrapers, and burins, made of materials of a more flinty nature, classified as 'Series 3'. The latter occurs on the surface of the red clay, and prepares the way for 'Series 4', which marks the topmost deposits and is generally microlithic in character (agate and quartzite). This belongs to the next chapter.