An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c14.s8.t2.15

v1.c14.s8.t2.15

The plains of c. Gujarat are built of coalescing alluvial fans brought down by the rivers flowing from the hills of Rajasthan and c. India. The present channels of the rivers are cut deeply into the alluvium and show clear signs of recent rejuvenation and most of them have developed river terraces. Two or three fossil soil horizons are also noticed in the sections indicating geomorphic changes during the late Quaternary. The ¹⁴C assay of the *caliche* nodules from the illuvial zone of the buried soil suggests that the soil (upper part of the Older Alluvium) was in formation 18000 to 24000 years ago. The soil may have begun forming several thousand years earlier. In w. Gujarat the Quaternary formations in the Sabarmati, Mahi, Orsand, Karjan, etc., consist of gravel conglomerates overlain by reddish silt and on the top occurs yellow sandy silt occasionally showing loessic characters. The gravels are non-fossiliferous but have yielded Lower Palaeolithic tools [4.2]. On the basis of Palaeolithic typology the deposits can be dated to the late Middle or Upper Pleistocene.