Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.38

c7.38

The first is at Rangpur in Kāthiāwād where, beneath material related to the Indus Civilization, was a layer containing crude microliths of jasper and agate without pottery. The layer has not yet been adequately investigated, and all that can be said is that on this site microliths were in use not later than the latter half of the 2nd millennium B.C. The second instance is in the Tinnevelly District of the southern part of Madras State. Here the coastal plain is characterized by extensive sand-dunes or *teris*, whence the sites associated with them are known as Ṭeri sites. The sands are connected with fossil beaches of calcareous sands largely of organic origin. Farther inland several morphological steps representing successive lagoon-floors of a greater age have been observed. On these various steps, A, B and C horizons have formed, but in many places the loose A horizon has been blown away, so that on the surface of the cemented B horizon is now encountered a concentration of industries originally deposited on or in A. In the aggregate, the industries must extend back to a very appreciable antiquity. They have been studied by Professor Zeuner and Mrs. Allchin.³⁵