An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s2.3

v1.c9.s2.3

The Lower Palaeolithic cultures of India fall within the time-span of the Middle Pleistocene [9.8.2] and early part of the Upper Pleistocene, approximately covering a period from about half-a-million to 50000 years B.P. Stratigraphically the earliest of them is the one represented by tools found in the fluvio-glacial deposits in the LIDDAR valley near Pahalgam in Kashmir, which are overlain by the Second Glacial phase of the Middle Pleistocene in Kashmir. Another area yielding older cultures is w. Saurashtra where the tools have been obtained underlying the Middle Pleistocene miliolite [9.7]. There being no Early Pleistocene industry in India, the Lower Palaeolithic of India is of a later date than that of Africa, where the earliest lithic cultures have been dated to nearly 1·75 to even 3·5 million years.