An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s3.2

v1.c9.s3.2

Intensive investigations in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have shown that the Middle Palaeolithic sites outnumber the Early Palaeolithic ones, probably suggesting an increase in population. The known sites may be classified into three groups, viz. cave and rock-shelter sites, open-air workshops or factory sites and river sites. The Sanghao and Parkho-darra caves and the rock-shelters near BHIMBETKA are the best known examples of the first group. By far the most prolific sites are the workshops located at the sources of raw material—outcrops of chert, chalcedony, jasper and agate occurring in sedimentary formations and as intertrappean beds. Some of them are very extensive, covering several hectares of land; they contain thousands of artefacts comprising finished tools and waste products. KOVALLI and DEVAPUR in Karnataka and CHOLI and KHADKI MATA in Madhya Pradesh are among the best known sites of this group. Some of them are situated quite far away from the main rivers, which may imply that assured of the availability of food resources man had occupied the interior regions. The abundance of tools at some of these sites suggests that they were visited by human groups several times; it is even probable that they served as camping sites. At the river sites the artefacts, obviously derived over some distance from a factory or habitation site, occur in cross-bedded sandy pebbly gravels which overlie or rest against pebbly cobbled gravels yielding Acheulian assemblages. Several such sites have been found along the NARMADA, GODAVARI, Krishna and other rivers. NEVASA on the PRAVARA and TAMINHAL on the Krishna are two well-known sites of this group. In the Late Sohan of Punjab, which is now grouped under the Middle Palaeolithic both culturally and chronologically, the artefacts occur in gravel and silt deposits forming Terrace 2 cut into the tilted Boulder Conglomerate of the Middle Pleistocene. The importance of these river sites is by and large confined to the fact that they enable us to fix the relative stratigraphical position of the industry in the culture-sequence of a particular region. Apart from the three groups mentioned above, there are a few sites like SANGANAKALLU, Dt Bellary, where the artefacts occur on hilltops.