**2. Lower Paleolithic**

Despite numerous efforts by several researchers such as Armand in central India [64] and the British Archeological Mission to Pakistan [33], the Oldowan has continued to remain elusive in India. Instead of unequivocally deriving from well-dated excavated contexts, almost all reported occurrences (n = 12) come from surface contexts or there are other contextual and geochronological issues associated with these finds [65]. Oldowan evidence has been reported from the Siwalik Hills in Pakistan and northern India as well as from the Narmada Basin in central India. The latest evidence, from Masol near Chandigarh, was reported by an Indo-French team and includes stone tools from excavated contexts and a possible-cut-marked fossil bone from surface context [16]. The researchers have provided an age estimate of 2.6 Ma for this material, however the contexts are disparate and the cut-marks are not properly verified [66] as they could have been produced from other processes also, such as animal teeth or fluvial transport prior to fossilization (e.g. [67]). The Lower Paleolithic of South Asia is basically dominated by (Large Flake) Acheulean assemblages that currently range in age from 1.5 Ma to 120 Ka [40, 57]. Acheulean sites are known to occur almost throughout the Subcontinent with some exceptions - the Gangetic plains, northeastern India and surrounding areas, Kerala, the extreme southern tip of India and Sri Lanka [4]– owing to various factors such as topography, geology, ecology, climate, high sea-levels and the absence of suitable raw materials. Acheulean assemblages variably include handaxes, cleavers,

**39**

**Figure 2.**

*Diverse handaxes, picks and trihedral elements from the Narmada Basin, Central India.*

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian…*

miscellaneous bifaces, picks, giant and small cores, polyhedrons, large and small flake blanks, flake tools such as scrapers and debitage at some primary-context factory sites (for examples, see **Figures 2**–**7**). The site with the oldest-known Acheulean evidence (Attirampakkam) also happens to preserve the oldest-known early Middle Paleolithic at 385 Ka [58]. This indicates that the full transition from the Lower Paleolithic to the Middle Paleolithic in South Asia was lengthy, geographically and chronologically uneven and behaviorally complex. This is evident

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

miscellaneous bifaces, picks, giant and small cores, polyhedrons, large and small flake blanks, flake tools such as scrapers and debitage at some primary-context factory sites (for examples, see **Figures 2**–**7**). The site with the oldest-known Acheulean evidence (Attirampakkam) also happens to preserve the oldest-known early Middle Paleolithic at 385 Ka [58]. This indicates that the full transition from the Lower Paleolithic to the Middle Paleolithic in South Asia was lengthy, geographically and chronologically uneven and behaviorally complex. This is evident

#### **Figure 3.**

*Handaxe and miscellaneous bifacial elements from Son Valley, north-central India (pic courtesy: Shashi Mehra).*

from the lengthy overlap between the earliest Middle Paleolithic at Attirampakkam and the Late Acheulean dated to 140–120 Ka in the Son Valley of north-central India [40]. In addition, such a lengthy transition is making it difficult for archeologists to often separate terminal Acheulean assemblages from early Middle Paleolithic ones. For example, the Son Valley evidence was respectively classified as Middle Paleolithic and Late Acheulean by two different groups of researchers over time (see supplemental data in [58]). It is also possible that the specific hominin groups during this transition made and used different technologies in differing contexts for diverse functional purposes: e.g. assemblages with Late Acheulean handaxes for heavy-duty tasks verses Levallois dominated flake assemblages for light duty tasks, a hypothesis that can only be resolved through chronologically-targeted landscape archaeology.

Key issues that are yet to be properly understood for the South Asian Acheulean include the nature of change within this techno-chronological phase as well as understanding factors to understand regional variations in assemblage compositions, artifact and site densities, timings of regional transitions, some geographic absences of occurrence and lack of absolute ages for most of the stratified assemblages. Broader aspects that remain to be properly understood include the number and directions of Acheulean dispersals into and out of the Subcontinent, the hominin species that were associated with that technology and the diverse subsistence strategies that took place across the region. In addition, specific regions have ambiguous features for which factors are currently unclear: for instance, the Gujarat zone (westernmost India) has not yet yielded Early Acheulean sites and while Maharashtra has numerous Early Acheulean sites on Deccan Trap basalt, no Late Acheulean sites have yet been reported. While future surveys may refine such observations, we need to explore additional explanations for such discrepancies. For example, lack of assemblage burial during specific fluvial and depositional cycles and associated sub-aerial weathering processes may have affected assemblages with smaller basalt specimens than in the Early Acheulean (see [68, 69]). However, this explanation may not be equally applicable to the entire zone of Maharashtra – perhaps basalt was not deemed suitable for Late Acheulean hominins or populations shifted to other regions to target different raw materials such as quartzite, and so forth. Based on preliminary counts from compiled data, a minimum of 1560 Acheulean/Early Stone Age sites and

**41**

patterns of occurrences.1

**Figure 4.**

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian…*

site-complexes have been reported and there are major differences in the geographic

in some zones), broad observations may still hold for most regions despite future survey efforts. For example, the northern zone, northeastern zone and the southernmost tip of India have the least number of Acheulean sites totaling to 51. The remaining zones have yielded significantly higher numbers of sites, especially central, eastern and peninsular India; for example, compiled data for central India alone yielded 305 published Lower Paleolithic sites out of which 17 have been excavated [70]. The virtual lack of Lower Paleolithic sites in southern Tamil Nadu and Kerala suggests that Lower Paleolithic hominins may have never reached the southernmost Indian coastal tip; this fact, along with a probable lack of a land bridge, may explain why no Acheulean evidence is known from Sri Lanka. This may further suggest that hominins first entered Sri Lanka after about 100 Ka when large bifaces ceased being made throughout India. In any case, more intensive surveys are required in Sri Lanka

*Diverse cleavers from the site of Pilikarar in the central Narmada Basin.*

<sup>1</sup> The minimum counts of different types of Paleolithic sites provided in this paper come from an ongoing compilation of published data (e.g. *Indian Archaeology- A Review; Man and Environment; Purattatva*).

While one factor may be research bias (i.e. lack of surveys

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

#### **Figure 4.**

*Diverse cleavers from the site of Pilikarar in the central Narmada Basin.*

site-complexes have been reported and there are major differences in the geographic patterns of occurrences.1 While one factor may be research bias (i.e. lack of surveys in some zones), broad observations may still hold for most regions despite future survey efforts. For example, the northern zone, northeastern zone and the southernmost tip of India have the least number of Acheulean sites totaling to 51. The remaining zones have yielded significantly higher numbers of sites, especially central, eastern and peninsular India; for example, compiled data for central India alone yielded 305 published Lower Paleolithic sites out of which 17 have been excavated [70]. The virtual lack of Lower Paleolithic sites in southern Tamil Nadu and Kerala suggests that Lower Paleolithic hominins may have never reached the southernmost Indian coastal tip; this fact, along with a probable lack of a land bridge, may explain why no Acheulean evidence is known from Sri Lanka. This may further suggest that hominins first entered Sri Lanka after about 100 Ka when large bifaces ceased being made throughout India. In any case, more intensive surveys are required in Sri Lanka

<sup>1</sup> The minimum counts of different types of Paleolithic sites provided in this paper come from an ongoing compilation of published data (e.g. *Indian Archaeology- A Review; Man and Environment; Purattatva*).

#### **Figure 5.** *Cleavers and cleaver-like flake blanks from the central Narmada Basin.*

to confirm a true absence as well as recover, excavate and date potential Middle and Upper Paleolithic sites [71].

Other key anomalies for the Lower Paleolithic include 'missing contexts' and 'missing evidences'. For instance very few Early Pleistocene deposits, contexts and lithic assemblages have been identified south of the Siwalik Hills and the few known ones have been identified through limited but diverse methods such as palaeomagnetic dating, cosmogenic dating, electron spin resonance, associated stratigraphic correlation and microtremor readings [35, 50, 53, 57, 72–75]. This is probably due to a multitude of factors including the lack of focused surveys, lack of geochrononological applications and geological processes which may have both deeply buried such contexts as well as destroyed them (e.g. cut-and-fill regimes). These may explain why legitimate or unequivocal Oldowan assemblages have yet to be discovered, excavated and dated. In the same vein, Middle Pleistocene contexts and sites have also not been adequately identified, primarily owing to the earlier lack of suitable geochronological methods. Reliable Middle Pleistocene dates have started to be reported only recently as some of the sites have been studied and known for many decades to yielded important stratified lithic assemblages: the multicultural sequence at the 16R dune at Didwana in Rajasthan [5] now dated to between ~187–6 Ka [5]<sup>2</sup> , the Late Acheulean occurrences of Patpara

**43**

**Figure 6.**

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian…*

and Bamburi in the Son Valley in Madhya Pradesh dated to between 140 and 120 Ka [40] and multiple early and later Middle Paleolithic assemblages from Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu dated to between 385 and 73 Ka [58]. However, despite these investigations as well as stratigraphically and geochronologically identifying some Middle Pleistocene sites and contexts, they have not yet yielded any vertebrate fossil material. This temporal and contextual pattern of fossil preservation also applies to the known Early Pleistocene sites in central and peninsular India [50] which have yet to yield adequate vertebrate fossil evidence. Some rare

*In situ or stratified handaxes in quaternary fluvial sections of the central Narmada Basin.*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

<sup>2</sup> The new luminescence dates for the 16R dune (<190 Ka) replace the previously-reported U-Th dates which had shown the bottom-most layer as being >350 Ka; the revised chronological framework has also led to the re-interpretation of the cultural sequence (see Blinkhorn 2013).

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

**Figure 6.** *In situ or stratified handaxes in quaternary fluvial sections of the central Narmada Basin.*

and Bamburi in the Son Valley in Madhya Pradesh dated to between 140 and 120 Ka [40] and multiple early and later Middle Paleolithic assemblages from Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu dated to between 385 and 73 Ka [58]. However, despite these investigations as well as stratigraphically and geochronologically identifying some Middle Pleistocene sites and contexts, they have not yet yielded any vertebrate fossil material. This temporal and contextual pattern of fossil preservation also applies to the known Early Pleistocene sites in central and peninsular India [50] which have yet to yield adequate vertebrate fossil evidence. Some rare

#### **Figure 7.**

*Find-spots of cleavers in surface context with diverse sedimentary types from the central Narmada Basin (pic courtesy: Vivek Singh).*

exceptions of vertebrate fossils found in contexts older than the Late Pleistocene in India include Isampur [15] and Attirampakkam in southern India ([76, 77]) and Dhansi in central India [44]. While the older contexts appear to be largely devoid of fossil preservation, it is highly probable that some or most of those older fossils have been redeposited in younger depositional contexts during landscape rejuvenation cycles. This probably also applies to some of the known fossil hominin material from the central Narmada Basin [7, 8] as associated mammalian teeth from Hathnora yielded variable absolute ages indicating chronologically-mixed fossils and probably artifacts as well [44]. Therefore, it is vital to date well-preserved vertebrate fossils directly using such methods as electron spin resonance and uranium-series, to obtain exact ages of the specimens rather than ages of their burial or minimum ages.

**45**

**Figure 8.**

*Mehra).*

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian…*

The early Middle Paleolithic appears to begin before 385 Ka [58] and is characterized by a gradual transition from large bifaces to small bifaces, before they disappear completely during the later Middle Paleolithic. In fact, the region allegedly preserves the youngest diminutive bifaces in the world (see [37, 78]), although this requires verification through more contextual and geochronological research across the Subcontinent as earlier U-Th dates need to be revised (e.g. [5]). The changing toolkit also includes the introduction of different reduction strategies and

*Multiple perspectives of three Levallois flakes from the Son Valley, north-central India (pic courtesy: Shashi* 

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*

**3. Middle Paleolithic**

*Human Evolution in the Center of the Old World: An Updated Review of the South Asian… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94265*
