An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s2.t5.4

v1.c9.s2.t5.4

Age) as a distinct cultural phase in the Stone Age of India is a fairly recent development, originating with its discovery and identification at NEVASA on the PRAVARA (Sankalia, 1956). In the exposed sections at this site a number of artefacts—scrapers, points and borers, all on flakes—made of siliceous materials like chert, chalcedony, agate and jasper were found in the middle or upper gravels (Gravel II), overlying or resting against a coarse gravel (Gravel I) with Acheulian artefacts [4.2] like cleavers and handaxes on trap or dolerite. Thus, raw material, typology and stratification establish a separate cultural status of the flake-tool assemblage. Sankalia provisionally called it Series II industry, the handaxe-cleaver assemblage from the earlier gravel forming Series I. This evidence facilitated a clearer understanding of the flake-tool assemblage found at NANDUR-MADHMESHWAR on the GODAVARI a decade earlier and gave a meaning to similar collections reported even earlier from the KANDIVLI region near Bombay, Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and n.-w. Punjab (the Late Sohan of De Terra, [4.2]).