An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c28.24

v2.c28.24

The animal bones [15.1] found associated with the Mesolithic cultures include both domesticated animals (dog, zebu or one-humped cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep and pig) and wild animals (lizard, porcupine, horse or donkey, *barasinga*, *sambhar*, *chital* and Indian hare), almost in equal proportions. Thus the Mesolithic industry reveals a hunting-based economy and a nomadic (camp) life. There is no evidence of agriculture or pastoralism. The presence of domestic animals may at the most suggest some sort of Neolithic tradition hitherto unrecognized. In a way it is comparable with that of the Natufians of Mount Carmel who lived as a primitive group in the milieu of a Neolithic environment. Some fragments of human bones have been found in the Mesolithic level but the Palaeolithic deposit has not yielded any animal or human bones. It may be mentioned that a large number of thoroughly mineralized animal bones occur in the sediments forming the Narmada cliffs. On the basis of typological comparisons of the tools of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic cultures obtained in the excavation with those associated with the animal fossils in the Narmada alluvia the lithic cultures appear to be the late Middle Pleistocene to the Late Pleistocene [9.8.2], approximately falling within the time range 200000 to 20000 years B.P. The ¹⁴C date of shells associated with the earlier microliths is 7450±130 B.P. and that of the uncharred bones from the upper level is 2845±105 B.P.