An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c34.265

v2.c34.265

In order to check up and add further data on these observations. F.E. Zeuner’s team including V.D. Krishnaswami and the writer visited the sites examined earlier and a few more. While Burkitt and Cammiade did not observe any element of Series III and IV around Giddalur, the collections of Zeuner’s party included these elements also (Soundara Rajan, 1952). The study of the tool collections from the sites further showed that while only Series I and II of Burkitt and Cammiade were mainly found at Giddalur I, Series III and IV were found at Giddalur II (Narasimhakonda) where some elements of Series I and II also were present. The collections which were mostly from the surface at these sites also included two tools, one an Acheulian [4.2] handaxe on a section at Giddalur II and a parallelogrammatic cleaver, also Acheulian, from the implementiferous horizon of the Talapalle section. The stratigraphy at Giddalur revealed a cemented gravel deposit on the basal weathered rock above water-level, overlain by a silt layer and again superimposed by a loose pebbly deposit totalling to about 3½ m. This was repeated at nearly three different localities: (1) s. of SPG Mission Bungalow; (2) between 86th and 87th milestones of the Giddalur road; and (3) n. of the railway line and between the road and the river. The import of this might indicate two aggradational phases and the loamy sand or silt in between might suggest a comparatively dry condition. Typo-culturally all the four sites, Giddalur I and II, Talapalle and Kanchipalli, yielded proto-Levallois [16.17.1] tools. Giddalur I has the distinction of showing all the earlier facies from pebble tool to Clacton scrapers including rostrocarinates, Victoria West and ovoids, while Giddalur II which does not have the last three elements compensates this lack by showing further development beyond proto-Levallois and Levallois in the form of bladish flakes and coarse burinate tools. The total number of tools examined was 240. The presence of rostrocarinates, Victoria West and the most characteristic single and double Vaal technique cleavers definitely uphold the earlier observations of Burkitt that the tools bear comparison with s. African tools. But it should be added that this is indeed a parallelism in cultural taxonomy and would not indicate any direct ethno-cultural link between these two regions. It however does group the s. Indian tool series of the Early Stone Age with the s. African in a cultural consanguinity of tool traditions with climatic correlations. Series I and II tools are made on brownish fine-grained quartzite, while the other group of flakes, blade-flakes and scrapers is on greenish quartzite or shaly rocks or lydianite.