Paleolithic Culture

Spanning the period from about 2.6 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago, the Paleolithic culture represents a key chapter in human history. During this vast time, early Homo sapiens and their ancestors lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. This culture is characterized by remarkable stone tools and art, such as cave paintings, that offer insight into their daily lives, social structures, and cognitive abilities. The Paleolithic era witnessed human evolution, from the use of basic hand tools to more sophisticated tools as the cognitive abilities of Homo sapiens grew.

These ancient people adapted to different environments, developed languages ​​and communication systems, and created complex social dynamics in small groups.

They also displayed symbolic thinking, as evidenced by the art and rituals associated with their spiritual beliefs.

Paleolithic culture laid the foundation for the Agricultural Revolution and the subsequent development of civilizations, leaving a lasting legacy in our understanding of human origins and the dawn of creativity and innovation in the history of our species.

Paleolithic Culture

Introduction Paleolithic culture

From an archaeological perspective, the ability to create culture distinguishes humans from early hominids, and the ability to make stone tools is a cultural act. And this is why stone artifacts form the basis of early evolution. It is also because all recognizable stone artifacts are the product of highly developed craft traditions with far-reaching socio-economic implications. Thus, the classification of early human cultures is based on the types of tools they made and used.

Classification of Stone Age culture

Based on the tradition of tool making, the entire Stone Age culture was divided into three main stages, i.e., Paleolithic Culture, Mesolithic Culture, and Neolithic Culture.

The Paleolithic stage is again divided into the Younger, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic stages, which are based primarily on the typology and technology of tools and, in general, on the relative chronology given by the geological stratigraphy.

Lower Paleolithic Culture

The earliest stone artifacts or tools associated with hominids are quartz pebbles known as chipping tools. The finds from Riwat and the Siwalik sites in the Pabbi Hills belong to this tradition. However, the Pabbi Hills finds fall between the Riwat finds and the hand ax tradition of the following period.

Hand ax Tools

The next stage in the development of stone tools was the arrival of hand axes and chisels. In addition to finding handaxes in Tamil Nadu in the 1860s and then in Sindh, these axes have been recorded from the Las Bela region and the Bugti Hills of Baluchistan, as well as in the mountain valleys northwest of the Indian plains.

Such implements are also found on surface sites and in river gravels in the Himalayan foothill valleys from the Beas to the Brahmaputra system, on outlying rocky hills in the Indus-Gangetic plains such as the Rohri Hills in Sindh, and on the southern fringes of the Ganges plain.

Some Paleolithic artifacts have been found along the arid central part of Rajasthan and the edges of the Rajasthan Desert. Some Acheulean artifacts, including hand axes dating to around 100,000 BC, have been excavated from the calcareous clay in ancient stratified sand dunes in the Didwana desert region of Rajasthan. Similarly, some Acheulean tools have been found on the Saurashtra coast in the Narmada valleys, for which two thermoluminescence dates from ca. They were obtained 95,000 and 67,000 years ago. Such artifacts are completely absent in the areas south of the Kaveri River along the Western Ghats. Many artifacts have been found at Dina and Jalalpur in the Jhelum Basin (Pakistan Punjab), including hand axes dated by paleomagnetism to between 500,000 and 700,000 years ago.

The Sehwal deposits in the Middle Son Valley have been dated by thermoluminescence methods to about 100,000 years ago. The Son and adjacent Belan valleys (Mirzapur, UP) yield a range of artifacts from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Neolithic.

Hunsgi’s Artifact

A surface site at Hunsgi in the southern Deccan, in the valleys of two streams of the Krishna river system, has yielded groups of handaxes and associated tools. Several Hunsgi sites are quite large and have accumulated debris from the production of various types of artifacts. Perhaps these were places where people often lived and made tools.

Smaller sites in the area appear to have been temporary campsites. Caches of finished tools were also found. The tools were made of hard limestone and dolerite. K. Paddayya and M.D. Petraglia, the group’s investigators, concluded that more than one group subsisted on a variety of food sources such as game, fruit, roots, and seeds.

A stone tool factory in Sindh

A stone tool factory, known as Milestone 101, has been found in Sindh (Pakistan). Here, the use of raw materials belonging to every technological phase of the Paleolithic stage has been recorded. There was a high proportion of Lower Paleolithic material, which included hand axes and cleavers.

The Rohri Hills of Upper Sindh (Pakistan) have also yielded Lower Palaeolithic materials. Hand axes were reported from Sukkur and Ziarat Pir Shaban. The main characteristic of the Rohri hill sites is that they were used not only during the Palaeolithic phases but also during the early and mature Harappan (The Indus Valley Civilization) phases.

Bhimbetka Hill Artifacts

It is located around the Bhimbetka hill, in central India near Hoshangabad on the Narmada river. Caves and rock shelters have provided evidence of Paleolithic settlement. Many of the shelters show signs of continuous occupation and tool manufacture. Relatively few of them are rich in rock art and provide additional material for understanding their culture. These rock shelters date back to around 100,000 BC.

Adamgarh Hill in the same locality has also yielded Neolithic and Middle Stone Age artifacts. Artifacts include hand axes, chopping tools, eggs, and several chisels. Attirampakkam, Budida Manu Vanka, and Gudiyan Caves near Madras have shown a sequence of Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic artifacts. However, the occupation of the cave was irregular. Other sites in peninsular and central India where evidence of Palaeolithic work has been found are Anagawadi and Bagalkot on the Ghataprabha River in Karnataka; Chirki near Newasa on the Pravara River in Maharashtra; Mahadeo Piparia on the Narmada, M.P.; Pawagarh hill in central Gujarat (factory site). Kibbanahalli in Mysore etc. Other localities include Lalitpur in UP: Kuliana in Mayurbhanj district, Orissa; Jalore, Pushkar, and Mogara Hill (Jodhpur) in Rajasthan.

Middle Paleolithic culture

The Middle Paleolithic is generally viewed as a time of regional and local diversity, both in terms of stone technology and tool types and in terms of increasing adaptability in the face of significant temperature reductions. In this period, the main tools were various blades, points, drills, and scrapers made from flakes. The Middle Paleolithic was not recognized until the 1960s. It was established only in the 1960s and was named as Nevasan after the type locality of Nevasa in Maharashtra. Bhimbetka layer 5 has a Middle Palaeolithic settlement. In Chirki near Nevasy, one phase of occupation represents a Middle Paleolithic industry and settlement site.

Middle Paleolithic Artifacts

• (i) In the Son Valley, the Middle Paleolithic lasted from 100,000 BC to 40,000 BC. Middle Paleolithic artifacts of a more refined kind have been discovered at Marble Rocks near Jabalpur. Lake Budha Pushkar on the eastern edge of the Thar Desert was an ideal area for Middle Paleolithic people because good stone was found in close proximity to a permanent source of fresh water. A group of Middle Paleolithic industries in the southern Thar Desert is named Luni Industries after the discoverer, V.N. Misra. The industry resembles that of the Nevasan and Central Asian Middle Paleolithic assemblages. Evidence of this industry comes from Hokra, Baridhani, Mogra, Nagri, etc. This industry has been dated between 45,000 and 25,000 BC.
• (ii) The large open sites found in the Soan Valley and the Potwar Plateau mainly belong to the Middle Palaeolithic phase. Some of these sites were residential areas as well as factories. Sanghao Cave in the extreme northwest was a regular settlement site during the Middle Paleolithic period. At Chancha Baluch belonging to the Rohri group of industries, the Middle Palaeolithic phase shows the local development and emergence of the basic stone technology of the Upper Palaeolithic phase. Other Middle Palaeolithic sites in India include Bhera Ghat, Damoh, Pandava Falls, Chauntra, Wainganga, Hoshangabad, around Mumbai, Kondapur, Salvadgi (Mysore), Krishna river valley, Wagon and Kadamati river valleys in Mewar, Bhandarpur near Orsang valley, valley Buharbalang (Orissa), Aurangabad, Bagalkot (Ghataprabha basin), Attirampakkam, Gudiyam (Tamil Nadu), Gundla-Brahmeswaram etc.

Technique

Nevadan artifacts (such as the Middle Paleolithic known in the Peninsula and Central India) were primarily made of cryptocrystalline silica of various kinds, such as agate, jasper, and chalcedony, as the granular quartzite of the Lower Paleolithic phase.

Such materials were obtained from rivers in the form of pebbles. Flakes vary in shape and are found in round, rectangular, pointed, tortoiseshells and long flakes with parallel sides. Some composite tools consisting of a “quarry” or drill point and two hollow scrapers have also been recorded. The authors of the Sanghao Caves continued to make quartz tools.

A significant number of burials have been found here. A few pointed flakes used for piercing and drilling were found, and a few flakes and quartz fragments worked to a point classifiable as awls. The Luni industry group includes convex and concave-convex scrapers, carinated scrapers, points, bruins, side cutters, hand axes, chisels, and adze blades. In the Rohri industry, large lumps of deer are the main tool material.

Upper Paleolithic culture

This phase of Paleolithic culture coincides with the last phases of the Pleistocene when many changes in the environment took place. Innovations in stone tool production reflect hunter-gatherer adaptations to changing environments. This is reflected in the nature of the stone artifacts, which are lighter and smaller, allowing new methods of working the stone. This phase is also characterized by new materials for making tools.

Development of stone technology

The most profound development in stone technology can be seen in the technique of making blades. We find evidence of long parallel blades. The number of diggers and scratchers increased. Blades with parallel sides could be trimmed to form a functional part of a tool, such as a knife or spearhead. Another important aspect of this culture is the increasing use of bone tools. Some tools like harpoons, needles, etc. have been recognized.

Upper Palaeolithic Industries in India

In India, Upper Paleolithic industries appear to have emerged in the arid regions of Pakistan and western India. At Site 55 in Riwat, archaeologists found evidence of the manufacture of large parallel blades of quartzite.

This site was dated by the thermoluminescence method to ca. 45,000 years ago. However, this site is considered transitional from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic. The Sanghavi Caves in Afghanistan are another site that provides evidence of an Upper Paleolithic culture. Upper Palaeolithic working areas have been identified in the Rohri Hills at Milestone 101. At Budha Pushkar in Rajasthan, there are some Upper Palaeolithic sites that show elements of continuity between Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites.

Upper Palaeolithic sites

• (i) Several Upper Palaeolithic sites have been uncovered in the Belan and Son valleys. Prof. G. R. Sharma’s research during the 1960s in both valleys led to the identification of cultural developments from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards.
• In the Belan Valley, the Upper Palaeolithic assemblages were dated by the C14 method to 19,715+340 years before the present. It was 10,000 years ago in the Son Valley. At Chopani-Mando in the Belan Valley, a sequence of settlements from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic has been found. Chopani-Mando is an important site where fossil animal bones have been found in the gravels of all four depositional cycles of the Belan River. The third gravel contained the bones of sheep and goats, which are not native to the region. It is believed that they may have been brought by migrating human groups, either from the Himalayas or from the western borderlands.
• (ii) Upper Palaeolithic artifacts have been found in a cave at Renigunta in southern Andhra Pradesh. A large collection of blades and gouges was found here. Some Upper Paleolithic artifacts have also been found in the Rallakagava River Valley. Many bone tools have been discovered at Betamcherla in AP. Artifacts from Visadi in central Gujarat show a mixture of Upper Palaeolithic and Nevasan Middle Palaeolithic techniques. Many Upper Palaeolithic sites have been found in the Shorapur and Bijapur districts of Karnataka.

Conclusion

The Paleolithic lasted from 500,000 years ago, when the first tool-making Homo erectus arrived, to 10,000 years BC. The Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and Upper Paleolithic are divided into three periods. The transition from each of these phases to the next was gradual and characterized by the finer stone tools and technology of the time. Moreover, due to several circumstances, such as time lag, weather fluctuations, vast distances, various geographical and physical obstacles, and so on, this distribution is not consistent across the planet. With the end of the Ice Age around 10,000 BC, the Paleolithic era ended.

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