Stone AEe Technologv in India K,PADDAYYA ABSTRACT This paper presents a review of various aspects of Stone Age (Palaeolithic and Mesolithic) general technology in lndia. After initial remarks about the history of Prehistoric studies and culture Sequence, detailed observations are made about how changes in raw material of utilization, experienced from time to time, and consequent improvements in techniques tool-manufacture and tooltypes themselves led to changes in subsistence and settlement patterns of Stone Age hunter-gatherer groups. The review concludes with remarks highlighting the need for identification of regional settlement systems, functional interpretation of lithic of non- assemblages, study of present-day use of stone for various purposes, and recognition utilitarian dimensions of Stone Age technology. CONTENTS l.lNTRODUCT10N 2.HISttORY OF PREHISttORiC RESEARCH 3 FIRST PARADIGM 4.PARADIGM SHIFT 5.FRESH FIELD RESEARCH 6.GENERAL CULttURE SEQUENCE 7.USE OF ORCANIC MAttERIALS 8.LITHIC ttECHNOLOGY A.lmprovements in raw mateHal ulllza10n 9.SttUDIES iN TECHNOLOGY A.Lower PalaeolithlC B.Mlddle and Upper Palaeolithic C.Mesolnhic 10 GENERALTRENDS ロ ロ 暉 r‐ ‐ ロ ロ 口 ‐ 甲 甲 ― ― ― ― ― ■ ■ 口 ‐ 口 ‐ 口 甲 暉 "― ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 甲 ・ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||■ ANCIENT INDiA,NEW SERIES,NO.1 11. TASKS AHEAD A" Regional adaPtive sYstems B. Functional interPretations C. Rspects of non-utilitarian behaviour learning D. Ethnography as a source of 「 IIIiDIDNOTPROGRESSUNIFORMLYORSTEADILYBUTHEDIDPROGRESSONTHE1/VHOLE MAKING AND T00L― USiNG CREATURE WHO FROM A FAIRLY INEFFICIENT AN!MAL TO A T00L― DOMINATED THE VVHOLE PLANET BY HIS NUMBERS AND B漱 ::[:η晏[li:Fギ ∫」][担 ACTIVITY,AND HAS NOⅥ′ONLY TO LEARN TO CONTROL Hい I. INTRODUCTION upon certain aspects a review of the evidence bearing paper I propose to present by H' D' 7futhis This topic was first dealt with ur,d Mesolithic t"tft*togy in lndia' Llof Palaeolithi. books titled stone Age Took: Their forty years a'o i" t'is t'wo well-knovrn (-f sant ulia more than of Prehistoric Technologt in (1964) and Some '\spects Techniques,Ncmes ond" Probable Function's techniques and an excellent account tf manufacturing (1970). These publications provided try to go one India the review' we will of hunter-guii"'"' societies' In Present rypes of stone implements and evolution of prehistoric to relate t..h.,oiogy to rhe functioning step further and attempt pre-literate stage in which man more than one-milrion-year-rong socieries. we are dealing r,vith of evidence for *uy of life' The overwhelming body led a nomadic and hunting-gathering artefacts and' to a human story is formed by'sto1t this iong formative stage of the reconstructing bone and antrer. Let us start with of organic materials like wood, limited extent, by objects made one or par excellence of rndia's the birth centenaries of rwo students T",f,:Tr":iriTJlToor, and H' D' Sankalia' while they in the country - D' D' Kosambi ancient past were celebrated and Sankalia recognized and methods' both Kosambi differed vastly in their overail up*outi"' theuniquefeaturesofthecountrfsheritage,itsrelevancetothePresent,anduseofthepresentas a method major books which are stili widelv century they pubrished their [:ti[x'*'};,1Ti;r, prehisr and.protohistory in rndia andpakistan sankalia,s book ory by schorars and students arike. Culture and used years iuter Kosambi's book The (second edition in 1974)' Two appeared in 1963 Although as fresh students outrine (196s) was pubrished. civilization of Ancient India in Historicar 10 IN INDiA STONE AGE TECHNOLOGY rwo books, the differing contenrs and approaches of these lve were initiarly somewhat befuddred by one ro exclusion of the other, that. far from being faced rvith ti-re need to prefer we recognized to our understanciing of our past. we soon realized borh were indispensabre sources to a meaningful pleasantsurprisethatwhileSankalia,sbookwasrichincarefullyacquiredandassorteddatawhichlower and work was repiere with many carefully drawn is basic to alr empiricar sciencesl, Kosambi,s grasped too the truth in the about the trajectory of the counrry's past. we higher order inferences intuitions that'Thoughts without content are empty; famous German philosopher Kant,s ,,u,.*"r, are blind' (sense data) without thoughts :--- r^- n-r ,crriern/ As he has a good starting -^:-)point for our review' As The writings of D. D. Kosambi provide Indological studies and indeed Kosambi lacked formal academic training ir himself confessed, severar more 'roof- ,roof. In fact, this was his advantag" ,.ra we need arrived there from the and abiliry to recognize the woods among trees breakers,. Kosambi possessed an uncanny madeSomeverypertinentobservationsaboutthemethodsoflndologicalresearchandabout prehistory can afford to ignore' Among prehistoric life in general which no student of Indian (Kosambi 1965: Ch' 2): most important observations rhese, I consider thl fo[owing as the a)IceAgewasneithersoharshnorasextensiveasinEurope'suchthatfood-gathering'apartedibie items' task and covered a wide range of hunting and fishing, was a much easier from the essential way sense of erhnography; it refers to b) culture i, toi" understood in the of life of the people' on the means basis of human cultur'es and are dependent c) Food supplies ut" urr essential procurem€nt' and instruments) adopted for (techniques rise and of production leads to population d) Any important advance in the ,,*u,,, alterations in relations of production' e)Temporalvariabilityexistsinregionaiculturaldevelopment. of an important comPonent of the methodol0gy fl 'Living prehistorf or ethnography is Prehistoric research' archaeological record of hunter-gatherer these propositions to the available Before relating Age research in the country' smges in the development of stone societies, let us briefly note the main 2. HISTORY OF PREHISTORIC RESEERCH his geological Bruce Foote had discovered during archaeorogical sites which Robert over four hundred princely states of Baroda and 7gg7,and later in the erst\ rhile surveys in south India from 1g63 to Mysore,wereassignedbyhimtothreechronologicalstages'viz''Palaeolithic'Neolithicandlrontrr" main catalogue, Foote included a In his 46_page-Iong introductiorr"to Age (Foote 1914,1916). (Foote 791'6:7-74)' tools of the Palaeolithic people section of seven paSes on the *"upo,'*'d comprising axes artefact types in the collection' recognized as many as one dozen He choppers' scrapers circular two rypes of spears, digging toJs' knives' (with four sub-types), his observations about and strike.a-1ights. Foote also recorded implements, cores, hammerstones for tool-making palaeolithic people ior quartzite as the raw material the preference shown by the 11` l ANClENT INDIA,NEW SERIES,NO.1 and made some inferences about the probable uses tO ■vhich the stone implements vvere put. Foote did not come across any nlicrolithic sites and hence proposed a hiatus beれ veen the Palaeolithic and ⅣIesolithic stages(Foote 1916:15-17). But this gap was adnlirably filled by the discOveries ofA.C.Carlyle,one ofthe ield assistants of Alexander Cunninghanl vvhO dOcumented historical sites of northern lndia for急 ハ√enty years froln 1862 to 1885。 Carlyle discovered in the caves and rock shelters of lMirzapur hills Of central lndia deposits yielding tiny implements or what we now call microlithic artefacts made of siliceous materials.This led tO the recOgnition of the existence of a Mesolithic stage(C00k and 1/1artingell 1994).1'hus before the c10se ofthe nineteenth centu7,the existence of Palaeolithic and ⅣIes01ithic stages was irmly established in the country. 3。 F:RST PARnD:GM The next mttOr deve10pment came up with the recognition of three distinct stages within the Palaeolithic by Canllniade and Burkittin 1930.Based On their study oftechn010glcal and typ010glcal features of stone artefacts, Obtained iOm variOus sedilnents fOrnling part of cliff― sectiOns Of rivers in the Kurnool area Of Andhra Pradesh, they put fOrward a four― stage cultural sequence (deSignated as Series l tO IvD,which cOuld be brOadly cOrrelated with Lower,Middle and upper palaeolithic,and Mesolithic stages,respectively. Silnilar attempts were Fnade by de Terra and PatersOn(1939)in northwestern lndia and by Zeuner(1950)in Gttarat.Sankatta'sr市 er valley suⅣ eys at Nevasa On the Pravara in the Deccan revealed a silnilar succession of four stages within the StOne Age(Sankalia 1956).Thus came into existence what rnay be called the stratigraphic_cunl¨ climatic― cum― cultural sequence paradigm in the lndian Stone Age studies.This paradignl governed PrehistOric studies in the next h″ O decades or sO; Sankalia hilnself and his c011eagues at the Deccan COllege and wOrkers fron1 0ther places adopted it and undertook a large number ofregiOnal studies in different parts Ofthe cOuntry.Prehistory indeed emerged as a regular branch Oflndian archaeology. Sankalia's b00k Prchisι ο αnd Prο t072お γ 10ry in lndiα αnd Pα kisι αn (1963, revised 1974) served as the reference wOrk.His Other boOk s[ο ne/聴「e rOο lsf rた cir Tccた rliqllct NQmes and PrObα b:θ Furlcど :ο ns(1964)served to ftlrther consOlidate the place Of stOne Age studies in the cOun町 1'he lingering dOubts abOut the existence Of upper Palaeolithic Phase in lndia were finally put tO . rest by MurtrS diScoveries of blade and burin assemblages in the Rallakalava basin Of Andhra Pradesh(Murty 1968,1979). 4.PnRnD:GM SH:FT PrehistOric studies soOn began receiving strong dOses Of rebuke fronl sOme quarters. Impatient with the preOccupation Of the sch01ars