History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c10.10

v1.c10.10

J. Coggin Brown has made it sufficiently clear that with our present state of knowledge it is clearly impossible to divide the Pleistocene period into shorter stages. The division of European Palæoliths into clearly divided chronological periods is not yet possible in India, though some Indian scholars have attempted it.³ Until excavations are carried out in rock shelters or river beds, it will not be possible to identify the industrial remains left by the races which inhabited India in the earlier days of human history with similar types discovered in other countries of the world. It cannot be decided at present whether the strata in Indian Pre-historic culture correspond to the stages already recognised in Europe. "Indian Palæoliths are massive rock fragments in the vast majority of cases composed of quartzite, chipped into cliving, smiting and perhaps digging implements, exactly resembling the early stone age implements, found in Northern and Southern America, Central Africa, and in Europe." ¹ Bruce Foote was of opinion that Indian Palæoliths could be divided into ten distinct classes but Brown prefers to recognise three broad classes only: "*Bouchers*, which correspond to the English 'celt' and the French 'coup de poing' or 'hache a talon'; *palæoliths*, in which I include the axe and cleaver-like forms including the 'Madras' and 'Guillotine' types; and *discoid forms*."