Earliest human settlement in India was during the Pleistocene era of ice age some 5 lakh years ago. Thus, Stone Age can’t go beyond that. The Palaeolithic age ranges from 5 lakh years before present till 8000 BCE till the Ice Age ended.
Usage of stone tools mainly for hunting and gathering purposes.
Hunted animals mainly involved medium sized animals like gazelle, nilgai, sambar, antelope, bison, etc.
We find that those species dominate which were abundant in those regions.
Location- mainly in rock shelters and in the upper course of rivers due to availability of coarse pebbles
Evidences found from fossils of domesticated animals.
Rock paintings are a famous feature. The most important being those at Bhimbetka in Vindhyas.
Lower Palaeolithic is characterized by hand axes, choppers and cleavers.
Middle Palaeolithic is characterized by usage of flaking.
Upper Palaeolithic is characterized by burins and scrapers.
Important Palaeolithic Sites
Kashmir- hand axe found near Pahalgam. Generally, not much found due to extremely cold climate during those times. Sohan valley in Pakistan has also yield hand axes.
Rajasthan- Chittorgarh and Kota and the basins of Luni river • Kutch area in Gujarat yield hand axes, cleavers and choppers.
Bhimbetka caves near Bhopal
Maharashtra- river basins of Tapi, Godavari and Krishna. Sites include Nevasa, Shikarpur, Koregaon, etc.
East India – river basins of Mahanadi, Baitarni, etc and sites like Singhbhum.
Tools are found in Chhota Nagpur plateau, Kurnool district, Belan valley in UP, Sanghao in Pakistan.
Baghor I in MP has a triangular stone told to be the female fertility.
Neolithic age marked the beginning of domestication of animals, basic cultivation of rice, wheat, barley, etc, building of circular and rectangular houses.
Due to agriculture, settled life began and wandering life reduced.
Due to availability of food, life expectancy increased.
Food could be stored for a longer time hence storage pots were developed. This was the beginning of pottery.
A transition was seen from handmade pottery to wheel thrown pottery. Multiple clay figurines, mud houses, small granaries can be seen developing in 6th– 4th millennium BC.
More sophistication of tools is found. Axes became more polished.
Sites like Mehrgarh show transition from primitive cultivation to proper agriculture.
Important Neolithic sites
Burzahom in Kashmir
Chirand in Bihar
Garo hills Meghalaya,
Maski, Brahmagiri, Hallur, Kodekal, Sanganakullu, T. Narsipur and Tekkalakota in Karnataka,
Paiyampalli in TN
Utnur and Piklihal in AP
Ghaligai and Sarai Khola in Swat Valley
Mehrgarh. Kile Gul Mohammad, Rehman Dheri, etc in Baluchistan.
Transition to Pre-Harappan Phase
Historians believe Neolithic cultures appeared the earliest in Baluchistan region due to the influence from western Asia.
Moreover, it was a the right place for agriculture because it does not have dense forests, has short valleys and small alluvial plains. The earliest settlement can be traced back at Mehrgarh to 7500 BC.
Transformation from Neolithic age to pre-Harappan era can be seen in northwestern India mainly in Mehrgarh, Pirak, Nowshera, Harappa, Ganweriwala, Kalibangan, etc.
Examples of similar design on pottery can be seen at Kot Diji which resembles with Harappan designs.
The transition was marked by urbanization. This could possibly be due to spreading of people in the west and northwest India.
Mehrgarh settlement is an interesting excavation because it shows continuity from Neolithic age to pre-Harappan age. The early Neolithic age contains bones of animals like type of deer, goat, sheep, cattle, etc. The domestication of animals was found in this phase. No pottery existed in this phase. The date has been fixed to around 6000 BC. The subsistence was based on hunting and farming both. The people lived in rectangular houses made of mud bricks. Abundant microlith have been found in these sites. The later phase that starts after 5000 BC shows chalcolithic remnants.
Located near Bhopal, Bhimbetka are some of the oldest caves where Stone Age people resided. They are 642 in number in which 400 bear paintings.
The paintings are instrumental in knowing the human beings, lifestyle, food habits, social habits, etc of the people in pre-historic times when no literary source existed.
The paintings have 7 periods with first 3 being in pre-historic age.
Period I – upper Palaeolithic Age. The paintings are simplistic and linear. The humans are shown in stick-like figures while animals shown are bison, tiger, elephants, rhinos, etc. The main colours used are green and red
Period II- Mesolithic Age. There is sophistication in details and variety in paintings. Hunting scenes dominate. Now, hunting is done with spears, axes, bows, arrows which shows development in stone tools. Multiple animals are depicted. Women are also showed, either nude or dressed. The clothes and ornaments are simple. Social scenes like cooking food, grinding, playing, community dances show development in social life.
Period III– Chalcolithic Age. Paintings reveal some sort of exchange between cave dwellers and the settled agricultural communities in Malwa. Pottery and metal tools are also shown. However, the vividness of earlier ages disappears.
Need for paintings- express creative urges, decorate homes, tell stories, create memories
Painting details- A total of 16 colours have been found, mostly in the shades of red, black and white.
The paints also show tapping of various minerals. Red colour-haematite, green-chalcedony, white from limestone.
Brushes were made of twigs while the hair were of squirrel tails or animal fur
Animals shown- Chital, leopard, tiger, elephant, rhino, deer, squirrel, birds, frogs, lizards, crabs, etc. Interestingly, no snakes have been shown. Most animals are shown in lines while some are shown in X-ray style or inner organs are shown. Eg- pregnant deers. The famous Bhimbetka Boar shown has a body of boar but snout of a rhino.
Human depiction- Men are shown in matchsticks while women have fuller forms. Clothes include that of loincloth, animal hides, leaves, etc. Men have loose hair while women have braided ones. Masked dancers are shown. Some figures have geometric designs showing they were men of authority.
Hunting scenes- People hunted singly, in groups, often wearing masks and elaborate headgears. They were adorned with ornaments like necklaces, bangles and carried spears and arrows. Hunters are sometimes accompanied by dogs
Community scenes like dancing or a busy day are shown. Sexual scenes are also shown. Men are shown hunting while women are shown foraging and preparing food.
Some paintings are not singular but in layers of 20. Perhaps, some paintings were eroded or the people felt like painting new motifs.
Some paintings are in caves where no living space exist. The caves could have been of religious significance.
Piklihal, Tekkalakota in AP and Karnataka. Lakhudiyar in Almora
Uttarakhand. Recently, petroglyphs were found at rock shelters in Dharaki Chattan in Madhya Pradesh dating to 2.5 lakh years before present.
Recently, petroglyphs and petrographs were found in Edakkal and Ambukuthi caves in Wayanad in Kerala dating to Neolithic times. Caves also found in Ezhuthu Guha.
Orissa has revealed 22 caves in Sambalpur region, concentrated around Garjanpahad.
Megalithic Burials
Megaliths are monuments of stones with roughly dressed slabs of stone.
In India, they are found in peninsular India right from Junapani in Nagpur, Maski, Nagarjunakonda till Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu.
The sites are as old as 2200 BCE in Gachibowli and sites like Adichallanur have burials up to 12th century CE.
Lately, Megalithic burials dating to 1200 BCE are found in Ri-Bhoi area of Meghalaya signaling the spread of Megalithic cultures.
Megalithic burials are classified as- o Chambered and Unchambered burials. o Unchambered are further classified as pit, urn and sarcophagus burials.
Chambered ones had vertical slabs of stones with a horizontal capstone which created a chamber.
Pit burials where funerary remains are buried in a pit.
In Urn, remains are buried in a pot.
Important aspect is that these burials are found away from habitation. One reason could be that the people were agro-pastoralists and shifted settlements regularly. However, evidence of food grains proves otherwise.
Rice husk was found at Coorg, green gram has been found at Paiyampalli. It shows a variety of crops were grown.
The Megaliths are mainly graveyards within which multiple objects like pottery, copper objects, iron objects have been found. Sites like Kodumanal have yielded carnelian beads which is not found in South India. This shows existence of trade.
Iron objects are characteristic because they show the existence of iron Age in south India. Artefacts include iron axes, flanged spade, sickles, knives chisels, daggers, swords, tridents, etc which show the extensive usage of iron.
Moreover, the kind of iron tools are common right from Janapani till Adichallanur which shows same kind of standard and life of people.
At multiple sites, animal bones of both wild and domesticated animals have been found indicating domestication.
Sense of astronomical direction is seen in Brahmagiri, Hanamsagar where bodies are laid north-south.
Religious Beliefs-
Unlike burials of Neolothic-Chalcolithic era, they tend to be away from settlements. This separation of living and dead is special.
Objects in burials show faith in afterlife. o Multiple people are buried in a same burial which might show a family burial. Multiple funerary practices were used like extended, fractional, post-cremation burials, etc.
Multiple headless anthropomorphs have been found at burial sites in Godavari but their religious importance is not known.
Life- Rock paintings show varied hunting, dancing and cattle raid scenes. Those at Paiyampalli also have flora, birds and sun motifs. It tells us about everyday life.
Historian Champakalaxmi believes Megaliths are foundational phase for Sangam age in south India while Rajan Gurukkal believes they started process of urbanization in south. Ranavir Chakravarti believes similarity of iron equipments and artefact shows trade with northern parts of India.
