Hu Man Oc Cu Pa Tion, Ad Ap Ta Tion and Be Hav Ioral
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Eura sian Pre history, 6 (1–2): 119–166. HU MAN OC CU PA TION, AD AP TA TION AND BE HAV IORAL CHANGE IN THE PLEIS TOCENE AND HOLO CENE OF SOUTH IN DIA: RE CENT IN VES TI GA TIONS IN THE KURNOOL DIS TRICT, ANDHRA PRADESH Mi chael Petraglia1, Ravi Korisettar2, M. Kasturi Bai3, Nicole Boivin1, Janardhana B.2, Chris to pher Clark son4, Kevin Cunningham5, Pe ter Ditchfield1, Dorian Fuller6, Jamie Hampson7, Michael Has lam1, Sacha Jones7, Jinu Koshy2, Pres ton Mir a cle7, Clive Oppenheimer8, Richard Roberts 9 and Kevin White10 1 Re search Labo ratory for Ar chae ol ogy and the His tory of Art, Dyson Perrins Build ing, South Parks Road, Uni ver sity of Ox ford, Ox ford, OX1 3QY, UK; mi [email protected], [email protected], pe [email protected], mi chael.has [email protected] 2 De part ment of His tory and Ar chae ol ogy, Karnatak Uni ver sity, Dharwad, 580 003, In dia; [email protected], janard_97@ya hoo.co.in, jinu.knapper@ya hoo.com 3 c/o Ar chae o log i cal Sur vey of In dia, 8th Cross, Kalyan Nagar, Dharwad – 580 007, In dia 4 School of So cial Sci ence, The Uni ver sity of Queensland, St Lu cia, Queensland 4072, Aus tralia; c.clark [email protected] 5 Del a ware De part ment of Trans por ta tion, Do ver, Del a ware, 19903, USA; [email protected] 6 In sti tute of Archae ol ogy, Uni ver sity Col lege Lon don, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK; [email protected] 7 De part ment of Ar chae ol ogy, Uni ver sity of Cam bridge, Downing Street, Cam bridge, CB2 3DZ, UK; [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 8 De part ment of Ge og raphy, Uni ver sity of Cam bridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, UK; [email protected] 9GeoQuEST Re search Cen tre, School of Earth and En vi ronmen tal Sci ences, Uni ver sity of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 252, Aus tralia; [email protected] 10 De part ment of Ge og raphy, The Uni ver sity of Read ing, Whiteknights, Read ing, RG6 6AB, UK; k.h.white@read ing.ac.uk Ab stract This arti cle reports on ongo ing archae o logi cal research in the Kurnool District of southern India. The region is well-known for its rich cultural heri tage, with previ ous inves ti ga tors identi fy ing “Up per Paleolithic” and “Mesolithic” in - dustries in caves, and Neo lithic settle ments on valley floors. Recent fieldwork in the region has expanded upon these ear- lier in vesti ga tions, result ing in the iden tifi ca tion of a wider range of archae o logi cal sites (Acheulean through to Early His- toric peri ods) in a vari ety of depositional contexts (i.e., caves, rockshelters, open-air settings). Survey in the Jurreru River Val ley revealed the pres ence of a volca nic tephra deposit, repre sent ing the Young Toba Tuff (YTT) of 74,000 years ago. Middle Paleolithic indus tries have been located in stratigraphic contexts above and below the tephra, thereby provid ing a unique oppor tu nity to exam ine stone tool technol ogy and human responses to this volca nic super-erup tion. Although dis- tinct “Upper Paleolithic” blade tool indus tries have yet to be reaf firmed through our cave inves ti ga tions, stratigraphic ob- serva tions indi cate that Late Pleisto cene stone tool assem blages (flake, blade, bladelet) and fau nas are indeed present. Sur- vey results in dicate that many hundreds of unre corded rockshelters are present in the Kurnool District, a signif i cant pro- portion bearing rock art and surface microlithic in dustries. Rockshelter test exca va tions have indi cated buried assem - blages, with one rockshelter contain ing dated microlithic assem blages at least 34,000 cali brated radio car bon years old. The valley floors contain Neolithic, Iron Age and Early Historic period settle ments as well as Megalithic burial structures. Con tem po ra ne ous mid- to late-Ho lo cene cave and rockshelter set tle ments are in ferred here as rep re sent ing the ac tiv i ties of 120 M. Petraglia et al. for ag ing pop u la tions. The ex traor di nary wealth of ar chae o log i cal re sources in the Kurnool Dis trict in di cates that the region can contrib ute substan tive infor ma tion about long- and short-term changes in hu man adap tations and social com- plex ity. IN TRO DUC TION posits, and con duct sur vey in order to locate new The Kurnool District is one of India’s most sites. Based on the iden ti fi ca tion of some sig nif i - im por tant ar chae o log i cal re gions, with nu mer ous cant ar chae o log ical sites in the Jurreru River Val - sites identi fied in the area over the past 150 years. ley and its vicin ity, a sec ond sea son of field re - The re gion is partic u larly known for its Paleo- search was con cen trated in the valley. A com- lithic re cord. Co lo nial ex plor ers be gan re search in prehensive list of ar chae o log ical sites that were the dis trict in the mid-nine teenth cen tury, in ves ti - re-vis ited or iden ti fied dur ing the two first field gating the famous cave com plex at Billasurgam sea sons has been com piled (Fig. 1, Tab. 1). In this (Newbold, 1844). The caves were subject to arti cle, we will begin by exam ining the regional large-scale ar chae o log i cal ex ca va tions, in some ge ol ogy and geo mor phol ogy that pro vides the contexts reaching depths of 10 meters (Foote, context for the Pleisto cene and Holo cene sites dis- 1884a). These early explor ers observed that a covered in the region. Subse quently, we will ex- “Magdalenian” bone indus try was present, and am ine the ar chae o log i cal re cord of the area we that changes of envi ron ment were ev ident, as in di- have sur veyed, looking first at cave sites in the cated by fauna as so ciated with for ests, grass lands west ern part of the Cuddapah Basin, then at the and swamps (Foote, 1884b; Lydekker, 1886). Jurreru River Valley open-air and rockshelter Later ex plor ers ob served that Paleolithic sites of sites, and fi nally at rock art sites. We will con - every period were repre sented in Kurnool (Cam- clude with a broad overview of the archae ology of miade, 1927). the region from the Pleisto cene through the Holo - The most com pre hen sive ar chae o log i cal cene, pre sent ing some hy poth e ses for fur ther work in the Kurnool District was conducted in the testing. 1960s and 1970s when system atic survey and ex- ca va tion ef forts be gan in ear nest (e.g., Isaac, 1960; Thimma Reddy, 1968; Murty, 1974; Murty RE GIONAL GE OLOGY and Thimma Reddy, 1975; Thimma Reddy, The study area falls within a dis tinc tive geo - 1977). Among the major findings of this re search logi cal ter rain known as the Cuddapah Super- was the iden ti fica tion of blade indus tries in caves group, a crescent shaped basin of Protero zoic age, and open-air settings (Murty, 1979). Such find- surrounded by the Penin su lar Gneissic com plex ings were thought to fill the tem po ral and indus - (Gupta et al., 2003). The Supergroup con sists of a trial gap between the better known as sem blages of 6,000 meter thick se quence of al ter nating sand - the Mid dle Paleolithic and the Mesolithic (Murty, stones, shales and limestones, with evi dence for 1979). Along side Paleolithic in ves ti ga tions in the vol ca nic ac tiv ity towards the base of the suc ces - re gion, ar chae o log i cal re search was car ried out of sion, and the intru sion of ba sic sills (Lakshmi and Neolithic and Iron Age sites, re sult ing in the re- Babu, 2002). The east ern part of the basin shows cording of many settle ments (e.g., Sarma, 1967, the great est degree of meta morphism and defor - 1968; Murty, 1989). A dis tinct Neolithic ce ramic mation (Saha, 2002). Be cause of the amount of ware type, known as Pathapadu (or Patpad) ware, meta morphism, shales have been turned into was de fined from the site of Pathapadu, based on slates and sand stones into quartzites, making exten sive surface collections (Foote, 1916; them prized build ing mate ri als that are widely Allchin, 1962; Sarma, 1968). quarried today in the region. This ar ticle de scribes our own re cent ar chae o - Our field project focussed on the rela tively logi cal research in the Kurnool District. The goal undeformed western part of the Cuddapah Basin, of our first season was to re-iden tify cave sites, consist ing of the Kurnool Group, a 500 m thick de ter mine the ex tent of their ar chae o log i cal de - suc ces sion of al ter nat ing quartzites, shales and Investigations in the Kurnool Dis trict, South India 121 Fig.