An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c34.63

v2.c34.63

**Ganga valley**, Dts Allahabad, Pratapgarh and Varanasi, explored by G.R. Sharma and his team of the Univ. of Allahabad. Over an area of 10500 sq km covering parts of Dts Allahabad, Pratapgarh and Varanasi hundreds of Stone Age sites ranging from the late Upper Palaeolithic [4.4] to the geometric Mesolithic [4.5] have been located. The noteworthy of these are: JAMUNIPUR, KURHA, BICHHIA BHIKHAMPUR, MAHRUDIHA,... SARAI NAHAR RAI, HARAHI-BHITULI, PATUPUR, etc., in Dt Pratapgarh and BANKAT-BHIKHARIRAMPUR and GARWA, in Dt Varanasi. The tools collected from these sites include scrapers, blades, blunted backs, points, trapeze (Bichhia) and triangles (Sarai Nahar Rai) fashioned on chert, chalcedony and quartz. Cores, flakes and *debitage* constitute a higher percentage than the finished tools indicating thereby that these were locally manufactured. As the raw material is not locally available in the Ganga valley it could have been transported from the Vindhyan area.