A History of Agriculture in India v1.c13: Chapter 7. The Hunters and Food-Gatherers of the Mesolithic Period

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c13

Language: English

v1.c13.s1 Domestication of the Dog — 7 parts
v1.c13.s2 Cave Paintings — 36 parts
v1.c13.s3 Surviving Primitive Tribes in the Mesolithic Stage — 7 parts
v1.c13.s4 References — 2 parts

Chapter 7. The Hunters and Food-Gatherers of the Mesolithic Period

v1.c13.2

THE transitional period between the end of the Palaeolithic and beginning of the Neolithic is called Mesolithic. It began about 10,000 B.C. and ended with the rise of agriculture and polished stone tools in the Neolithic Age from 7500 B.C. to 1710 B.C. It is characterized by tiny stone implements called microliths.

v1.c13.3

Microliths are widespread throughout the Indian subcontinent. Gujarat (Langhnaj), Madhya Pradesh (Adamgarh, Barasimha, Nimkhera, Sakri, etc.), the region between the central Indian hills and the Gangetic plains (Barakaccha, Sidhpur, Lekhania in the Mirzapur District, and Morhana Pahar), Birbhanpur on the Damodar in West Bengal, Karnataka (Raichur, Jalahalli, Kibbanahalli and Belgaum), and Andhra Pradesh (Nagarjunakonda) are particularly rich in Mesolithic sites. Mesolithic sites are common in Maharashtra. Microliths occur in the sands of the Godavari and the Wainganga rivers, on the hill surfaces at Ellora, and in the caves at Pachad and Hathkambha in Konkan. The tools comprise a large number of indeterminate flakes, blades, burins, geometric forms like the lunates, trapezes and triangles, scrapers and discoids, and small chopping-tools, and points of various types, including a few pressure-flaked bifacial ones.

v1.c13.4

The Adamgarh Hill near Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh has rock-shelters and cave-paintings (Fig. 33). It has yielded 25,000 microliths. The earliest finds were palaeoliths, comprising hand-axes, cleavers, ovates, discoids, scrapers, flakes and cores showing predominantly Acheulian characters. The occurrence of flakes and cores in the same deposit indicates that the tools were made on the spot. The tools comprised simple, backed and saw-edged blades, lunates, points, awls and a few burins. A few potsherds and bone-pieces were also obtained from the uppermost layer of the black soil. In trenches which lay under the cave-like shelters, both the tool industries were encountered: the lowest levels comprising red clays yielded palaeoliths, and the upper layers of black or dark-brown soil had microliths. 14Carbon dating of shells from Adamgarh carried out at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research has placed the beginning of the Mesolithic age in that area at 5500 B.C. at Lekhania. The Mesolithic age was as late as 1710 B.C.

v1.c13.5

Here it would be relevant to explain the technique for estimating the age of rocks and prehistoric objects. The so-called radioactivity method has been applied to the study of rocks. It is based on the fact that the emanations of radioactive bodies, such as radium, uranium, and so on, are transformed first into helium and then into lead. The amount of helium that issues, for example, from a given quantity of uranium during a fixed period has been calculated. Since the rate of disintegration of the uranium atom is known, the evaluation of the respective proportions of uranium, helium and lead in a mineral whose age it is desired to find gives some idea of the time that has passed since its formation.

v1.c13.6

The same principle is employed in the ¹⁴carbon method, which is, however, limited to the later periods of prehistory. This method is based on the discovery that alongside normal carbon, with an atomic weight of 12, all living organic matter contains various isotopes of this carbon, one of which is radioactive and is, therefore, known as radio-carbon, or, because its atomic weight is 14, as ¹⁴carbon. After death, ¹⁴carbon disintegrates progressively at a rate that has been measured and is believed to be constant. The older a bone or an archaeological object is, the less the radio-carbon it contains, and it is accepted that by the end of 25,000 years the radio-carbon will have totally disappeared. In the case of any object below this age, the quantity of ¹⁴carbon present gives a rough idea of its antiquity. In fact, when applied to articles taken from the Egyptian tombs, whose age is well established, this method has given exact figures. It may be assumed that it is equally accurate for older material.¹

v1.c13.7

¹ Boule, M. and Vallois, H.V. Fossil Men, p. 60

v1.c13.8

The Teri sites in the Tinnevelly District, Tamil Nadu, are mostly along the eastern coast of the tip of the peninsula and are dated 4000 B.C. by Zeuner.

v1.c13.9

On the basis of the available collection, a sequence of three industries is postulated: (i) an earlier Teri industry consisting of flakes and core tools; (ii) a later—the main—Teri industry, similar to the former, but including blades and geometric forms; (iii) a Neolithic blade industry, often accompanied with stone axes. The first two are generally made on quartz and chert and are heavily stained with red hydrated ferric oxide.

v1.c13.10

According to Sankalia, these tools must have been made by hunting and fishing people living in temporary camps on or near the coast. The geological context and the presence of certain tool-type might make the industry upper Palaeolithic and might be placed towards the close of the late Pleistocene, but provisionally it has been given a date of 4000 B.C., which is certainly very conservative.²

v1.c13.11

² Sankalia, H.D. From Food Collection to Urbanisation, in Indian Anthropology—Essays in Memory of D.N. Majumdar, p. 77

v1.c13.12

Equally ancient is the Birbhanpur microlithic industry, which was investigated by B.B. Lal. The tools are non-geometric and include irregular, free flaked cores, fluted cores, blades, lunates, points, borers, scrapers and burins (Fig. 34). The material is mostly milky quartz, though occasionally crystal, chert, chalcedony, quartzite and fossil wood are used. Lal's studies indicate that the climate when the microlithic people occupied the site must have been comparatively dry and mild. It succeeded the last wet phase during which dense forests existed in the region. This mild climatic phase was followed by a period of aridity, and the habitation layers were covered with wind-blown sand.

v1.c13.13

An important site in Karnataka is at Jalahalli, near Bangalore. Here, Todd found, in a reddish soil horizon, microliths of quartz, rock crystal and one of red jasper. Seshadri groups the collection on typological basis into two categories: (i) Jalahalli microlithic industry with a preponderance of crescents, points and arrowheads, indicating a hunting economy and environment; and (ii) Brahmagiri microlithic industry consisting primarily of parallel-sided flakes, and Gravettian-like pen-knife blades, implying a semi-urban culture in which arrowheads, crescent, etc., are absent.

v1.c13.14

Sankalia states that the people of Langhnaj who lived in the sandy undulating plains of northern and central Gujarat manufactured microliths, e.g. blades, lunates, trapezes, triangles, scrapers, points and a few burins, fluted as well as amorphous cores. The material is chert, agate, carnelian and only occasionally quartz. Heavy tools so far are very few—only one mace-head of a digging stick of quartzite was excavated. They hunted rhinoceros (*Rhinoceros unicornis*), hog deer (*Axis porcinus*), Indian buffalo, antelope (*Boselaphus tragocamelus*), black buck (*Antilope cervicapra*) and wild dog.

v1.c13.15

The Langhnaj people occupied elevated areas—sand-dunes—formed during the previous dry period and enclosed on three sides by small inundation lakes. They lived by hunting and fishing. Large quantities of cut animal bones were found in their habitations. These animals included cattle, nilgai, deer, rhinoceros, mongoose, pig, squirrels, rats, tortoises and fish. Animal flesh was cut with tiny tools, awls, scrapers of various types, blades and gravers or burins. Arrowheads of stone indicate that they used bows and arrows (Fig. 35).

v1.c13.16

Small quantities of potsherds suggest acquaintance with pottery. Quern fragments are so small that these could hardly have been used for grinding the grain of wild grasses. Among the few ornaments are round flat beads, and beads of dentalium shell. They buried their dead in a flexed posture in the north-south direction.

v1.c13.17

The microlithic industries of India seem to represent the arrival of new people, probably from the West. According to Sankalia, physically or racially they were fairly tall, with long head, slightly protruding lower lip and recall the Hamitic people of Egypt.

Domestication of the Dog

v1.c13.s1.1

The domestication of the dog (*Canis familiaris*) is the major achievement of the Mesolithic hunters. Wolves often hang around human dwellings as scavengers, feeding upon bones and crumbs of flesh. The earliest dogs were probably like the Indian pariah-dogs and the Javanese chow. These types followed the Mesolithic hunters round the world, breeding with other local species, e.g. the wolf, which, though distinguished as Linnaean species, are still infertile. That the dog entered into the ecological system of man very early is borne out by the fact that man and the dog are universally distributed together, even in remote regions like Australia, Greenland and Alaska.

v1.c13.s1.2

According to Zeuner, in northern Europe the dog had become a companion of man by about 6000 B.C. The Natufians of Palestine (named from one of their camp-sites in the Wadi-el-Natuf in Jordan) had the domesticated dog. The radio-carbon age of the Natufian layers in the tell of prehistoric Jericho is 8840 B.C. An early dog is from the Belt cave in Iran, c.9500 B.C. Harlan mentions a 12000 B.C. dog find from Iraq, which is the earliest at present. The very fact that the Harappans had well-domesticated breeds of dogs indicates that domestication of these animals must have taken place at least two to three millennia earlier. In the Harappan period the domesticated dog had already developed two distinct races. Marshall, who discovered terracotta figures of dogs from Mohenjo-daro, concluded that the cultivators of the Indus Valley had a dog resembling the pariah, another a terrier, and yet another the modern mastiff (Fig. 36). Baini Prashad identified the bones of a greyhound type of dog from Harappa, which he considers to be allied to *Canis tenggeranus*, which was widely distributed in the Oriental Region in Diluvial times, and was the ancestor of the pariah-dog. The Harappa dog, according to Baini Prashad, shows distinct affinities in the shape of its skull with the Indian wolf, *Canis lupus pallipes*. The Indian wolf, as Blanford relates, is rarely, if ever, heard to howl, and it sometimes barks like a pariah-dog. The young of the Indian wolf are born with drooping ears and are readily tamed. Moreover, all varieties of domesticated dogs have the wolf-type teeth. Studer derives the pariah from the dingo, which was widely distributed in southern Asia in former times.

v1.c13.s1.3

Discussing the origin of the domesticated dog, Zeuner observes, ‘The evidence so far available suggests that the domesticated dog sprang from one of the geographical races of the wolf. The possibility of an originally wild, dingo-like form now completely absorbed into the domesticated stock cannot be excluded, but such form would have been extremely close to the Indian wolf. In any case, however, the Mesolithic dogs of northern Europe already were introduced stock which appears to have been dingo-like (*C.f. poutiatini*) and which inter-bred with northern wolves (*C.f. inostranzewi*). These large dogs, from which Eskimo or other polar-dog breeds are ultimately derived, continue through the Neolithic. *C.f. poutiatini* gave rise to the sheep dogs of the Bronze Age and later to *C.f. matrisoptimae*, and to the hounds (*C.f. intermedius*)’.³

v1.c13.s1.4

³ Zeuner, F.E. *A History of Domesticated Animals*, p. 27

v1.c13.s1.5

The early men hunted wild horses, deer and wild cattle with the help of their rough traps, spears, bows and arrows. It is probable that wolves were their camp-followers and frequented the heaps of bones of wild animals which accumulated around the early Mesolithic camps. It is likely that out of fun the early men captured their cubs and tamed them. Young wolves captured in jungles were kept as pets and their utility as guardians of camps and hunters was the result of generations of enslavement and selective breeding. Women probably played an important role in developing the domesticated breeds of dogs on account of their inherent gentleness and patience. Very likely, these early animals became sufficiently tame to be harmless, but did not breed in captivity. Only when they began to breed in captivity and yielded themselves to selective breeding by man that they became truly domesticated and developed in intelligence and utility.

v1.c13.s1.6

These domesticated dogs were of great help to the Mesolithic hunters, and fleet-footed animals, such as deer, antelopes, foxes, jackals, and rabbits, were more easily available for the camp pot. Thus the food supply available greatly increased, and this might have led to an increase in the population of the early man. The domestication of dogs was a revolutionary advance in the life of the hunters and food-gatherers and opened out new possibilities of living with abundant and more variable dietary.

v1.c13.s1.7

Apart from hunting wild animals, the domestication of the dog led to still more useful results. As Zeuner observes, ‘Once the dog had become a member of the human society, the control and later domestication became possible of certain small ruminants which had always constituted an important part of the diet of the dog’s ancestors’. These are the goat and the sheep. The frequent occurrence of bones of dogs in the Bronze Age sites in Europe is connected with the increasing importance of sheep-keeping.

Cave Paintings

v1.c13.s2.1

The best evidence of the life and activities of the Mesolithic man lies in the paintings in cave-shelters. Numerous painted cave-shelters have been located in India. Haematite paintings on rock-shelters situated near Singanpur, in the Raigarh District, Orissa, represent hunting-scenes and dances with masked figures, resembling those at Cogul in Spain. One of them depicts kangaroos, animals now restricted to Australia. Representations of horse and deer in Singanpur cave-shelters are very much like the Spanish drawings of the same age. Rock engravings at Ghatsila, in the Singhbhum District, Bihar, are remarkable for their Australian character. According to Mitra, these facts point to the existence of an ancient Indo-Australian culture extending from the upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic.

v1.c13.s2.2

Cockburn discovered numerous painted cave-shelters in the Kaimur ranges in the Mirzapur District in Uttar Pradesh. Here, hunting scenes show men, armed with harpoons having stone shaftheads, attacking rhinoceroses. These paintings may be attributed to the end of the Palaeolithic period. In the Bellary District, more than 20 groups of animal drawings and hunting-scenes with men armed with javelins and shields are painted in cave-shelters.

v1.c13.s2.3

The most exciting discoveries of the Stone Age paintings are from Madhya Pradesh, and the scholar who discovered them is V. S. Wakankar. A group of fantastic rocks on the northern fringe of the Vindhyas facing the plains of Malwa could be seen from Obaidullaganj, about 42 kilometres from Bhopal, in the Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh. They are called Bhimbetaka, or the seat of Bhima (Fig. 37). Wakankar first saw them in 1957, but started the study of their paitings and stone tools in 1972. There are 754 rock-shelters, out of which more than 500 have paintings. Apart from Bhimbetaka, there are cave paintings at Bhopal, Jaora, Raisen, Kharwai, Narwar, Chhoti-Badi Dant, Pachmarhi, and Modi in the Mandsaur District, in Madhya Pradesh.

v1.c13.s2.4

The floor of one of the caves at Bhimbetaka was dug (Fig. 38). At the lowest level, pebble tools of the Soān type were found, followed by Acheulian hand-axes. Above them were middle Palaeolithic (30,000 to 100,000 B.P.) cherts and jaspers, followed by the upper Palaeolithic non-geometrical microliths, in which blades and burins were prominent. The next layer relates to the Mesolithic Period (10,000 to 7,000 B.P.) in which geometrical microliths and bone tools were found.

v1.c13.s2.5

Wakankar has classified the drawings and paintings into seven different periods. Out of them, the first three are tentatively dated as follows: Period I — Terminal upper Palaeolithic 20,000 to 10,000 years B.P. Period II — Mesolithic 10,000 to 4,000 years B.P. Period III — Chalcolithic 4,000 to 2,500 years B.P.

v1.c13.s2.6

Period I. The earliest paintings at Bhimbetaka are green and dark red. The green ones are fine outline drawings of dancers and hunters. The paintings fall into two groups. One group, possibly earlier, consists of drawings of elephants, wild cattle, boars, tigers, rhinoceroses, etc.

v1.c13.s2.7

Period II. The subject-matter of the second, and possibly of the later group, is more varied, and the drawings are small. Some of them portray hunting-scenes. Animals shown are wild cattle, elephant, tiger, wild boar, deer, antelope and birds. The hunting-weapons include barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows. It is rarely that the drawings are truly realistic, but sometimes the artists succeeded remarkably in capturing the natural grace of the animals.

v1.c13.s2.8

What is the purpose of this art in which animals figure so prominently? It seems it was magico-religious to ensure good hunting. Representations of large animals in strategically situated rock-shelters, such as the horned bull of Kanwala, boar, tiger, rhinoceros, fish, tortoise and mythical bull from Bhimbetaka, buffalo and elephant of Adamgarh, bull from Ramgudiwar

v1.c13.s2.9

| 1500 B. C. | | | | Neolithic Polished stone implements from Burzahom, Kashmir Valley |
| 2000 B. C. | | | | |
| 3000 B. C. | | | | Microlithic tools from Birbhanpur |
| 5000 B. C. | | | | |
| 10,000 B. C. | | | | Mesolithic Middle Stone Age Tools from Tapti Valley |
| 20,000 B. C. | | | | |
| 300,000 B. C. | | | | Palaeolithic Chopping tools from Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh |
| 500,000 B. C. | | | | |

v1.c13.s2.10

Fig. 39. Stone-tool types from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic age

v1.c13.s2.11

Talkoli of Badami, and elephant of Edakal caves, do indicate that these animals were deified and were painted oversize to create a feeling of awe in the spectators.

v1.c13.s2.12

The Mesolithic paintings are red. They depict hunting-scenes and are marked by vigour. The human figures are elongated and are shown holding bows, arrows and barbed harpoons, surrounding their quarry, deer in this case. In a corner, a group of men are shown fleeing from an attacking rhinoceros, while one of them is climbing a tree. Men are naked or wear a skirt of leaves or bark (Fig. 45). Resemblance with the Spanish cave paintings from Cueva de Val del Charco del Agua Amarga is obvious.

v1.c13.s2.13

A cave painting from Bhimbetaka shows a device which the cave-dwellers adopted for hunting. They used to scare herds of deer standing on rocks, with a steep fall below. In a painting deer are shown falling into a chasm from a ledge. The carcasses of dead or wounded deer were collected and eaten after roasting on fire.

v1.c13.s2.14

Wakankar published a group of paintings from Bhimbetaka which depict the activities and the social life of these hunters and food-gatherers. Two paintings depict love-making. Another shows a pregnant woman, and yet another the birth of a child, who is depicted between the legs of the mother. There is a charming group of children frolicking. There are Fig. 41. Mesolithic painting from a cave-shelter at Bhimbetaka. Herds of *cheetal*, wild buffaloes and cattle are shown Fig. 47. African birds and animals in Mesolithic cave-paintings from Madhya Pradesh: top, a giraffe Bhimbetaka; middle, ostriches, Bazar Cave, Pachmarhi; bottom, giraffes, Adamgarh cave-shelter, near Hoshangabad

v1.c13.s2.15

Fig. 33a. Adamgarh rock-shelters near Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh. These cave-shelters were occupied by Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunters. The lower levels yielded palaeoliths, and the upper microliths

v1.c13.s2.16

Fig. 33b. Detail of a cave-shelter at Adamgarh. The overhanging rock provided shelter to hunters against inclement weather. The roof is painted with hunting-scenes

v1.c13.s2.17

Fig. 34. Microliths from Birbhanpur, District Burdwan, near the Damodar Valley, West Bengal, 4000 B.C. They include blades, lunates, points and borers and burins (Courtesy: Archaeological Survey of India)

v1.c13.s2.18

Fig. 35. A mesolithic scene. A man is shooting an arrow tipped with a sharp microlith at an antelope. The other is throwing on a deer a spear tipped with a sharpened stone (Reconstruction from the Museum of Evolution of Life, Chandigarh)

v1.c13.s2.19

Fig. 36. Toys from Mohen-jo-daro, depicting a variety of dogs (After Mackay)

v1.c13.s2.20

Fig. 37. Cave-shelters at Bhimbetaka, near Bhopal, Raisen District, Madhya Pradesh. The walls and roofs of cave-shelters have paintings dating from the Mesolithic to the early historic period

v1.c13.s2.21

Fig. 38. Interior of the cave at Bhimbetaka. This cave has been in occupation since Palaeolithic times, as is evidenced by the discovery of Acheulian tools from the lowermost layer

v1.c13.s2.22

Fig. 40. A rock-shelter at Bhimbetaka. The roof is painted with figures of gaur, deer, sambhar, etc. (Courtesy: A.P. Khatri)

v1.c13.s2.24

Fig. 42a. A gaur from a cave painting at Bhimbetaka

v1.c13.s2.25

Fig. 42b. A buffalo-bull—a Mesolithic painting from a cave-shelter at Bhimbetaka

v1.c13.s2.29

v1.c13.s2.30

Fig. 43. Chronological and stylistic development of rock-painting in India (After V.S. Wakankar)

v1.c13.s2.31

Fig. 44. Life in the Mesolithic age at Bhimbetaka : 1, amorous couples; 2, pregnant women; 3, the birth of a child; 4, child-rearing; 5, children playing; 6, initiation of a child; 7, cure by magic; 8, ceremony for the dead; 9, the burial of a child, and a family in mourning (After V.S. Wakankar)

v1.c13.s2.32

paintings showing the agony of the family members for the dead. The last one depicts the burial ceremony of a dead child and the grief of the parents (Fig. 44). The brevity of expression is truly modern in spirit. With a few lines, so much is conveyed.

v1.c13.s2.33

Most interesting are the paintings of wild animals. It is the roofs of rock-shelters which have such paintings in white paint (Fig. 40). The animals depicted are herds of deer, *neelgai*, *sambhar*, *gaur*, buffalo, wild boar, rhinoceros, tiger and elephant (Fig. 41). The gaur-bull with its enormous horns is shown charging (Fig. 42a) and the buffalo-bull with its uplifted tail seems to be in a fighting mood (Fig. 42 b). These paintings show many features in common with rock paintings in the Tassili-n' Ajjer mountains in the Sahara. Not that there is any genetic relationship between the painters. The paintings show how the human mind works in parallel lines in a particular period of human development.

v1.c13.s2.34

Now I mention some extraordinary paintings from the cave-shelters of Madhya Pradesh. In the Bazar Cave at Pachmarhi, ostriches are depicted. I have already referred to the discovery of decorated ostrich egg-shells from Maharashtra. It is interesting to see these birds, now restricted to [Figure: EARLY MESOLITHIC PAINTING पुराणमध्याश्म युगीन चित्र . BHIM III-F-35/B]

v1.c13.s2.35

[Figure: Fig. 45. A Mesolithic painting from Bhimbetaka. Hunters armed with bows, arrows and spears are chasing game. Human figures are elongated to show rhythmic action (After V.S. Wakankar)]

v1.c13.s2.36

Africa, depicted in a cave-shelter in India (Fig. 47, middle). Giraffes, whose fossils have been recovered from the Pleistocene deposits in the Siwalik Hills, are also depicted in cave-shelters at Bhimbetaka and Adamgarh. A man with a bow is shooting an arrow at a giraffe (Fig. 47, bottom).

v1.c13.s2.37

A word about the age of the rock paintings. Potteries can be dated by 14carbon method. In some cases, the designs on Chalcolithic-Neolithic pots closely resemble those in some cave paintings. From Modi in the Mandsaur District, a site which had 60 painted rock-shelters, the majority of which have been submerged under the waters of the Gandhi Sagar Dam, Wakankar discovered a painted stone piece and a heap of haematite granules from Mesolithic levels. Thus the date of the painting was established to be that of the Mesolithic period.

v1.c13.s2.38

There is another significant discovery from Patne in the Ajanta Hill range of Maharashtra. There, S. L. Sali found decorated ostrich egg-shells. The shells were decorated with parallel cross-hatching and concentric circle engravings. At Bhimbetaka, bone engravings of similar designs as well as of bone tools have been obtained from the upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic levels.

v1.c13.s2.39

The rock-paintings at Bhimbetaka, which are green, are earliest on the basis of superimposition and can be attributed to the upper Palaeolithic period. After this period, the green colour has never been used, though there are a few exceptions, such as a group of flower-vase paintings in one cave, which belong to the Gupta period. The green in these later-period drawings is quite different from the earliest group in which it is much darker and tallies with the green nodules found in the upper Palaeolithic levels at Bhimbetaka.

v1.c13.s2.40

Apart from the colour of the paints, it is the style which is the surest guide to the age of paintings. In the case of cave paintings, some difficulty arises, as the paintings of the living tribals also resemble them. However, this resemblance is only superficial. An expert eye can easily distinguish the recent from the ancient. The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic paintings have a vigour and verve which is not matched by the present-day tribal painting.

Surviving Primitive Tribes in the Mesolithic Stage

v1.c13.s3.1

Apart from the stone tools, and cave paintings, some of the surviving primitive tribes provide us with an idea of the mode of life of the Mesolithic people and their food. Of these, the Onge of the Andamans, a Negrite pygmy tribe, are the most primitive. Only about 150 of them survive in the Little Andaman.

v1.c13.s3.2

Although they have now started using iron tips for their arrows and spears, their economy is essentially of the type of the Mesolithic Age, based on hunting, fishing and gathering. Cultivation in any form is unknown to them.

v1.c13.s3.3

"Within the limits of their pre-agricultural technology, the Onge optimally utilise the natural resources of the forest and the sea," states Sinha. From the forest, they procure tuberous roots, yams, jackfruits, pandanus fruits and various types of berries, and also pigs, larvae of insects, birds and honey. From the island creeks and their banks, they get freshwater fish, prawns, and turtle eggs. From the sea, they get fish, turtle, dugong, shellfish and crabs, and sea-borne cocoanut.

v1.c13.s3.4

"The forest provides them not only with the major sources of food but almost all their material requirements. The communal huts and temporary shelters are made from forest products. Other articles of their use—boats, weapons, their scanty body covering, decorative material and medicinal items—are all derived from forest products. Roots, stalks, bark fibres, stems, trunks, branches, leaves, flowers—every part of the tree is used.

v1.c13.s3.5

"There is a distinct division of labour among them. Hunting pigs, dugong or turtle, fishing with harpoons and bows and arrows are men's jobs, while women are mainly engaged in the collection of roots and tubers and fishing with nets.⁴

v1.c13.s3.6

⁴ Sinha, S. Primitive Hunters, Shifting Cultivators, The Times of India Annual, 1974

The Food Habits of the Tribals of Madhya Pradesh

v1.c13.s3.t1.1

The food habits of the tribals provide us with a clue to the type of food consumed by the Mesolithic food-gatherers and hunters. We will now consider the environment and food articles of the tribals of Madhya Pradesh.

v1.c13.s3.t1.2

In the Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh, the important tribal and sub-tribal communities are Maria, Muria, Bhatra, Mahara, Dhakad, and Rawat. In the Betul, Mandla, Sarguja and Chhindwara districts, Gond, Kol and Bharia predominate. The Jhabua District is inhabited by Bhils and Kanjars. These tribes most probably belong to the ‘Proto-Australoid’ group or the so-called Veddoid type.

v1.c13.s3.t1.3

Topographically, the regions inhabited by the tribal people are generally hilly and undulating, with high and low plateaus covered with dense and almost inaccessible forests.

v1.c13.s3.t1.4

Ecologically, the present forest vegetation represents bio-edaphic series, and very little of the primaeval forest is left. However, some relict areas of the mixed deciduous monsoon forests of *Shorea-Tectona-Diospyros* exist. The dominant tree species in the tribal forest areas are *Shorea robusta*, *Tectona grandis*, *Diospyros melanoxylon*, *Terminalia alata* (*T. tomentosa*), *Madhuca indica* (*M. latifolia*), *Pterocarpus marsupium*, *Buchanania lanzan* (*B. latifolia*), and *Anogeissus latifolia*. The sociability of these species is very high and they occur in closed colonies. The herbaceous ground-floor vegetation consists of a large number of species, many of which provide food to tribal races.

v1.c13.s3.t1.5

In Madhya Pradesh, although rice (*Oryza sativa*) and lesser millets (*Panicum miliaceum*, *Eleusine coracana*, and *Paspalum scrobiculatum*) form the staple diet of the tribal, almost all of them supplement it with seeds, grains, roots, rhizomes, leaves and fruits of numerous wild plants which abound in the forests. Grigson (1949) noted that famine has never been a problem in Bastar, as the tribes have always been able to draw half of their food supplies from the innumerable edible products from the vast forests.

v1.c13.s3.t1.6

Ethnobotanically, the knowledge about the food habits of various tribes is fragmentary and incomplete. Haines (1916), Mooney (1942), Elwin (1947), Grigson (1949), Roy and Rao (1957), Subramanyam *et al.* (1961) and Jain (1963) enlisted some species.

v1.c13.s3.t1.7

D. K. Tiwari (1977), of the Jawaharlal Nehru Agricultural University, Jabalpur, prepared a detailed list of wild plant species eaten by the tribals in Madhya Pradesh. He has listed 165 trees, shrubs and climbers. Of these, the first category contains a list of 31 plants whose seeds are roasted and eaten. It includes:

v1.c13.s3.t1.9

Fig. 46. Animals depicted in Bhimbetaka rock-paintings: 1, a wild buffalo; 2, a gaur; 3, a rhinoceros; 4, a boar; 5, a chinkara; 6, a spotted dear; 7, a sambhar, 8, a deer; 9, a blue bull (nilgai); 10, an elephant; 11, a tiger or panther; 12, a tiger (After V.S. Wakankar)

v1.c13.s3.t1.10

Avena fatua, Coix lacryma-jobi, Dendrocalamus strictus, Madhuca butyracea, Oryza sativa var. spontanea, Paspalum scrobiculatum and Setaria glauca.

v1.c13.s3.t1.11

There are 19 plants whose roots and tubers are eaten after baking, boiling or processing. This category includes: Asparagus racemosus, Arisaema tortuosum, and eight species of Dioscorea.

v1.c13.s3.t1.12

There are 17 plants whose juice is taken fresh or after fermenting. This group includes: Caryota urens, Phoenix sylvestris, Madhuca longifolia, Borassus flabellifer and Ampelocissus latifolia (Vitis latifolia).

v1.c13.s3.t1.13

There are 25 plants whose leaves are eaten as vegetables. These include Rotala leptopetala (Ammannia pentandra), Amaranthus spinosus, Bauhinia purpurea, Indigofera glabra (I. pentaphylla), Moringa oleifera (M. pterygosperma), Portulaca quadrifida, Nymphaea nouchali, Nelumbo nucifera and Shorea robusta.

v1.c13.s3.t1.14

There are 10 plants whose petals are cooked as vegetables. These include species of Bauhinia, Sesbania grandiflora, Cochlospermum religiosum and Holoptelea integrifolia.

v1.c13.s3.t1.15

There are 63 plants whose fruits are eaten raw, ripe, or roasted or pickled. The fruits of Aegle marmelos provide delicious food for the forest-dwellers. Buchanania lanzan, the chironji, provides them with delicious nuts. It occurs in many forests in Madhya Pradesh. The fruits of Emblica officinalis (amla), rich in vitamin C, are eaten raw or are pickled.

v1.c13.s3.t1.16

There are five species of Ficus which provide figs for the forest-dwellers. The fruits of the thorny shrub Pithcellobium dulce (Inga dulcis), also called jungli jalebi, are favourites with the tribals. Seedling mangoes (Mangifera indica) are common and are also eaten raw or ripe by both man and monkeys.

v1.c13.s3.t1.17

Tamarindus indica (imli) is a common forest tree whose pods make good pickles. The sepals of mahua (Madhuca butyracea) are greedily eaten and are also fermented for liquor. Morus alba, the mulberry, provides fruit for both man and birds. Besides, the ber, Ziziphus mauritiana and Z. oenoplia, provide delicious fruit. It has been eaten by the jungle-dwellers from the Mesolithic period onwards.

v1.c13.s3.t1.18

So far as sugar is concerned, honey of wild bees, Apis mellifera, was its main source for the tribals. Combs of wild bees are found in all the jungles of India. The rocky cliffs of Bhimbetaka are studded with numerous honey-combs of wild bees.

v1.c13.s3.t1.19

Thus we find that, apart from the flesh of wild animals, the Mesolithic people had a variety of seeds, leaves and fruits which they could collect from the jungles. The selections which they made ultimately provided plant material to their successors for cultivation in fields and gardens.

References

v1.c13.s4.1

Allchin, Bridget, Middle Stone Age Culture in India, Institute of Archaeology, University of London, 1960 Anderson, C.W. The Rock Paintings of Singanpore, Jour. Bihar and Orissa Res. Soc., 1918 Bose, S. Economy of the Onge of Little Andaman, Man in India, Vol. 44, 1964

v1.c13.s4.2

Boule, M. and Vallois, H.V. *Fossil Men*, New York, 1975 Burkitt, M.C. and Cammiade, L.A. Fresh Light on the Stone Age of South-East India, *Antiquity*, Vol. 4, 1930 Elwin, V. *The Muria and their Ghotul*, Bombay, 1947 Grigson, W.V. *The Maria Gonds of Bastar*, London, 1947 Haines, H.H. *Trees, Shrubs and Economic Herbs of Southern Circle, Central Provinces*, Nagpur, 1916 Harlan, J.R. The Plants and Animals that Made Man, *Scientific American*, Sept. 1976 Jain, S.K. Wild Plant Foods of the Tribals of Bastar, M.P., *Proc. Nat. Inst. Sci. India*, 30 B, 1964 Joshi, R.V. *Dawn of Civilization in Maharashtra*, Bombay, 1975 Khatri, A.P. Rock Paintings of Adamgarh (Central India) and their Age, *Anthropos*, Vol. 59, pp. 759-69, 1964 Lal, B.B. Birbhanpur, a Microlithic Site in the Damodar Valley, West Bengal, *Ancient India*, No. 14, 1958 Noorani, H. Cave Paintings of Madhya Pradesh, *Times of India*, Oct. 31, 1976 Piggott, S. *Prehistoric India*, London, 1950 Roy, J.K. and Rao, R.K. Investigations on the diet of the Muria of Bastar District. *Bull. Dep. Anthrop. Govt. India*, 6, 33-45, 1957 Sankalia, H.D. The Microlithic Industry of Langhnaj, Gujarat, *Journal of Gujarat Research Society*, Vol. XVII, No. 4, 1956 Sankalia, H.D. From Food Collection to Urbanisation, in *Indian Anthropology, Essays in Memory of D.N. Majumdar*, Bombay, 1962 Sinha, S. Primitive Hunters, Shifting Cultivators, *The Times of India Annual*, 1974 Wakankar, V.C. Bhimbetaka—the Prehistoric Paradise, *Prachya Pratibha*, Vol. III, No. 2 Wakankar, V.C. Bhimbetaka—Prehistoric Cave Paintings, *Marg*, Sept. 1975 Zeuner, F.E. *Stone Age and Pleistocene Chronology in Gujarat*, Deccan College Monograph Series No. 6, Poona, Deccan College, 1950 Zeuner, F.E. and Allchin, Bridget, The Microlithic Sites of Tinnevelly District, Madras State, *Ancient India*, No. 12, 1956