An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c10.s1.5

v1.c10.s1.5

Working on the surmise that ‘the pluvial cycles in s. India postulated by Burkitt might be related with the northerly glaciations already noticed in the Himalayan region’, the Yale-Cambridge Expedition led by H. de Terra in association with Teilhard de Chardin and T.T. Paterson undertook in 1935 ‘intensive research by the concerted methods of geology, palaeontology and prehistoric archaeology into the Late Cainozoic period in India as it bore on the Stone Age problem’ (Krishnaswami, 1947, p. 14). The investigations, after careful stratigraphical examination of the Pleistocene evidence, led to ‘working out a standard sequence of geological events’ based on the Quaternary Glacial Cycle in Kashmir and correlating ‘the glacial and interglacial deposits . . . with the Late- and Post-Siwalik formations of the adjoining foothills and plains lower down, for dating the artefact-bearing horizons in them’ (Krishnaswami, 1947, p. 14). The stratigraphical results thus obtained were checked against the palaeontological records which had been the basis of stratigraphy of Siwalik formations. While the study of terminal moraines and terraces provided evidence about the Pleistocene geology [9.8.2] and the glacial cycle in Kashmir, ‘the system of terraces discernible even in non-glaciated regions’ in Punjab, c. and s. India could be correlated with the glacial cycle in the glaciated regions. These terraces being the ‘successive habitats of man and his contemporary fauna’ provided chronological parameters as well. De Terra thus gave us a Pleistocene Ice Age chronometer through the Alpine glacial cycle in Kashmir and the periglacial Quaternary sequence in Punjab as found in the Siwalik series of the Himalayan foothills (Krishnaswami, 1953, p. 57). He also compared the facts of the Pleistocene stratigraphy and prehistory obtained in the Potwar terraces with the peninsular Pleistocene in the Narmada region which had already yielded rich Pleistocene mammal fauna and palaeoliths. He was able to demonstrate in this area ‘the association of early palaeolithic handaxe [4.2] and flake industries with a Mid-Pleistocene type of fauna (*Elephas namadicus*) thereby supplementing its data for Potwar, where such correlation had to be based on evidence other than palaeontological’ (Krishnaswami, 1953, p. 57). The Stone Age material in the NARMADA region also was found, *per se*, to show three stages: in the lower group are found large flakes reminiscent of the pre-Sohan industry of the boulder-conglomerate zone of the Potwar ‘in addition to the Abbevillio-Acheulian axes and cleavers of the Madras type, heavily rolled cores and flakes of early Sohan type, making it contemporaneous with terraces 1 and 2 in Punjab. However in the upper group here the Acheulian is very much rolled, while the fresh one consists of flakes, discoidal and pebble cores of quartzite and trap, showing evolution from the early Sohan of the Narmada, similar to the Late Sohan industry of the north’ (Krishnaswami, 1953, p. 57). The results obtained from Madras, the Narmada and the Potwar were compared with the Stone Age material found in implementiferous horizons in other parts of India with a view to seeing if a typological succession could be observed and correlating the climatic succession with that of the other areas like Kashmir and n. Punjab (Subbarao, 1952, 1958; Zeuner, 1950; Sankalia, 1952; Joshi, 1955; Krishnaswami, 1953, pp. 60-1).