An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s2.t5.1

v1.c9.s2.t5.1

Cultural remains of the Acheulian man are reported from Dts Nellore, Cuddapah and Chittoor of Andhra Pradesh and Dt Chingleput of Tamil Nadu. The Nellore group of sites, brought to light by Manley (Aiyappan, 1942), is sporadic in nature, and the implements are made on quartzite, bearing general Acheulian characters. The Cuddapah group is comparatively well-studied (Reddy, 1968). The sites in this region concentrate in the Pennar basin. The pebbly nature of the industry is striking, for not only is a good proportion of chopper-chopping tools present but even a considerable number of handaxes retain their pebble butt. The Acheulian manner of working occurs on the handaxes and cleavers. The associated flakes lack evolved techniques. The Chittoor group, which is not very far from the Cuddapah group, exhibits a different techno-typological trend (Murty, 1966). Implementiferous localities were discovered on the Rallavakalan, a tributary of the Subarnarekha. These assemblages are dominated by handaxes and cleavers of the Acheulian tradition. The Levallois element is well-represented in this group. Here too pebble tools occur in a good proportion. A typologically similar group of sites is known around AMRIDHAMANGALAM (Gupta and Dutta, 1961) and YIGAVARIPALEM (*IAR 1967-8*, p. 25) in the Araniar basin.