Quaternary International xxx (2011) 1e9 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint Dhaba: An initial report on an Acheulean, Middle Palaeolithic and microlithic locality in the Middle Son Valley, north-central India Michael Haslama,*, Clair Harrisb, Chris Clarksonb, J.N. Palc, Ceri Shiptonb, Alison Crowthera, Jinu Koshyd, Janardhana Borad, Peter Ditchfielda, Harindra Prasad Rame, Kathryn Pricea, A.K. Dubeye, Michael Petragliaa a Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, School of Archaeology, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom b School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia c Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India d Department of History and Archaeology, Karnatak University, Dharwad 580 003, India e Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India article info abstract Article history: This paper presents the first report on Dhaba, a newly discovered locality in the Middle Son Valley, north- Available online xxx central India. The locality preserves Acheulean, Middle Palaeolithic and microlithic artefacts within a Late Quaternary stratified alluvial sequence. Initial information is provided on the sedimentary sequence, archaeological survey and excavation, topographical mapping, and lithic technological analysis of Dhaba 1, the largest excavation at the locality. The assemblage is situated within the regional geomorphological and hominin occupation sequences, noting that while Dhaba lies within a kilometre of Toba tephra deposits, no temporal link between the tephra and the artefact-bearing sediments is possible at present. Dhaba currently provides the only known extensive occurrence of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts in the Middle Son Valley that lacks handaxes. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1983). These excavations have recovered important evidence for Late Acheulean habitation (Kenoyer and Pal, 1983; Haslam et al., The Middle Son Valley of northeast Madhya Pradesh, India, has 2011), as well as microlithic and potentially ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ one of the most comprehensively studied Late Quaternary sedi- artefacts (Clark and Dreiman, 1983; Sussman et al., 1983; Kenoyer mentological and archaeological records in South Asia (Thapar, et al., 1983a, 1983b; Misra et al., 1983a). Evidence for the use of 1979; Sharma and Clark, 1982, 1983; Williams and Royce, 1982; Middle Palaeolithic technology in the valley has been found at Williams and Clarke, 1984, 1995; Clark and Williams, 1987; Pal Patpara (Blumenschine et al., 1983), but the presence of Late et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2006, 2009, 2010; Jones and Pal, Acheulean bifaces in the same locality raises questions as to which 2009; Haslam and Petraglia, 2010). The steep escarpment of the industry this assemblage should be attributed. With debates over Kaimur range to the north and the Baghelkhand plateau to the whether the initial dispersal of Homo sapiens into South Asia was south define the east-northeast course of this part of the Son River associated with a Middle Palaeolithic tool-kit (Clarkson et al., in this (Fig. 1), with surveys from the 1960s onwards establishing hominin issue; Mellars, 2006), testing hypotheses over the timing and occupation from the Acheulean through to historic periods (Sharma context of the dispersal process requires Middle Palaeolithic et al., 1976). The focus of the most intensive archaeological explo- assemblages from well-studied sequences. ration has been a w50 km stretch from Patpara in the west to the This paper presents the initial report on a newly discovered confluence with the Gopad River in the east (from approximately locality, Dhaba, with extensive preservation of Middle Palaeolithic 81540 to 82210 E), including excavations concentrated to the north silicified limestone artefacts. The locality is comprised of a series of of the river and along the southern riverbank (Clark and Sharma, stratified sites approximately 0.6e1 km upstream (west-south- west) of the Rehi-Son confluence at Ghogara, where the first re- ported discovery of tephra from the w74 ka (thousand years ago) * Corresponding author. Toba super-eruption was made in the early 1980s (Williams and E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Haslam). Clarke, 1995; Jones, 2010). Microlithic artefacts, which are known 1040-6182/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.09.007 Please cite this article in press as: Haslam, M., et al., Dhaba: An initial report on an Acheulean, Middle Palaeolithic and microlithic locality in the Middle Son Valley, north-central India, Quaternary International (2011), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.09.007 2 M. Haslam et al. / Quaternary International xxx (2011) 1e9 Fig. 1. Map of the Dhaba locality. Above: location of the Middle Son Valley in north-central India (inset), with type localities for the Middle Son Valley formations and position of the YTT deposits at the Son-Rehi confluence. Below: reconstructed topographical map of the Dhaba locality, with archaeological trench positions (DAQ ¼ Dhaba Acheulean Quarry), 2 m contours showing heights above the adjacent river sands, and northing and easting grid in metres. to date from prior to 35 ka up to the late Holocene in India (Possehl, 2011). This paper follows Jones and Pal (2009) in tentatively 1994; Clarkson et al., 2009), stratigraphically overlie the Middle placing the tephra between the Patpara and Baghor formations, Palaeolithic assemblage at this locality, and evidence for Acheulean for the reasons outlined by those researchers. Toba tephra large-flake quarrying was found among quartzite boulders at the deposits have not been found in any of the excavated archaeo- base of the sedimentary sequence. This report outlines the results logical sites in the Middle Son Valley, and despite the presence of of initial excavations and sedimentary recording at the Dhaba numerous Late Pleistocene fossils in the Baghor formation locality, including detailed topographical survey. It also presents an (Badam et al., 1989), Pleistocene hominin skeletal remains are yet initial technological analysis of the excavated Middle Palaeolithic to be recovered. assemblage from Dhaba 1, the largest excavated site at the locality. Jones and Pal (2009) present a technological analysis of lithic artefacts from the Patpara and Baghor formations, which they 2. The Middle Son Valley sequence suggest span much of the Late Pleistocene. They demonstrate significant changes in the raw materials used for artefact manu- The Middle Son preserves stratified archaeological assem- facture, with an earlier emphasis on quartzite followed by a shift to blages within a general sequence of four sedimentary formations, limestone and finally chert and chalcedony (see also Clark and derived from alluvial, colluvial and aeolian sources. From oldest to Williams, 1987). Both flake size and platform size decrease over youngest, these are the Sihawal, Patpara, Baghor and Khetaunhi time, with a shift from more radial methods of core reduction in the formations (Williams and Clarke, 1995), with optically stimulated Patpara assemblages towards bidirectional and unidirectional luminescence (OSL) ages from the Sihawal and Patpara formations flaking in Baghor formation sites. Levallois cores were rare in the demonstrating occupation from at least Marine Isotope Stage analysed assemblages, with those recovered (n ¼ 2) found in the (MIS) 6 onwards (Haslam et al., 2011). Williams et al. (2006) Late Patpara and lower Baghor formations. Microblade and mac- proposed a fifth Khunteli Formation that pre-dates the Patpara roblade technologies occur together in several sites within the Formation and contains the w74 ka Toba tephra, but its validity is Baghor formation, and Jones and Pal note a possible overlap disputed (Jones and Pal, 2009). Recently, Williams (2011) further between these and previous Middle Palaeolithic production, sug- clouded this issue by suggesting that, contrary to his initial report, gesting that microlithic innovations may have been an autochtho- the Khunteli Formation post-dates the Patpara Formation. The nous development in the Middle Son, as seen elsewhere in India position of the Toba tephra in relation to the Middle Son Valley’s (Clarkson et al., 2009; Petraglia et al., 2009). The least well-known named formations is therefore open to question, especially as aspect of the Middle Son sequence remains the Middle Palaeolithic, there is an ambiguous lateral association between the Patpara as represented by Levallois, discoidal, multi- and single-platform formation type-locality (dated to c. 140 ka) and the river sections and bidirectional core technologies with occasional low-level within which the Toba tephra is patchily exposed (Haslam et al., blade production from a variety of core types. Please cite this article in press as: Haslam, M., et al., Dhaba: An initial report on an Acheulean, Middle Palaeolithic and microlithic locality in the Middle Son Valley, north-central India, Quaternary International (2011), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.09.007 M. Haslam et al. / Quaternary International xxx (2011) 1e9 3 examination of these boulders revealed unambiguous and exten- sive evidence for the removal of large flakes (typically >10