Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.74

c7.74

In central India it would seem that the stone axes were superimposed upon, or commingled with, the microlithic flake industries which were already rooted in the centre and south of the subcontinent. In central India at least it is unlikely that, to any major extent, the microlith-folk were still altogether ignorant of agriculture and stock-keeping, which had been well understood in the north and north-west for many centuries. To them, in the forested valleys, the new jungle-clearing axes may have been economically a useful accession. Whether from remote China the stone axe or adze was accompanied by a memory of copper and bronze is more problematical. This knowledge may rather have been contributed afresh by the Chalcolithic cultures of India. So it may be that, after all, the bringers of the stone axes were in a truly Neolithic stage of culture when they first entered the subcontinent. If so, here at last is a momentary Indian Neolithic of a conventional kind. But archaeology has not yet confirmed this. Systematic evidence from Burma or Assam would be crucial.