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1. An outline of
Paleolithic Cultures of
India
Dr. Virag G. Sontakke
Assistant Professor
AIHC & Archaeology, BHU

2. An outline
Of
Paleolithic Cultures of India

4. Introduction
Human
Prehistory
Before Writing
Stone Age Palaeolithic
Lower
Palaeolithic
Middle
Palaeolithic
Upper
Palaeolithic
Bronze Age Mesolithic
Iron Age Neolithic
18,00,000 to
5000 BCE
History
Writing
5000 BCE

5. Paleolithic Culture
• Begun with the origin of Man
• Its initiated when man started using tools
• Large time period of human History
• Geologically Pleistocene period
• Man: Homo habilis, Homo Erectus
• Period: 1.8 Mya to 20000

6. https://youtu.be/KV6lpX79G2g

7. Important Features of Paleolithic Period
Terminology Geological
Age
Stone Tools Type Chief
Subsistence
traits
Lower Paleolithic Lower
Pleistocene
Pebble and Core Tools
Handaxe,
chopper,
cleavers
Hunting and
Gathering
Middle Paleolithic Middle
Pleistocene
Flake Tools and Core
Tools
Scrapers, handaxes
Hunting and
Gathering
Upper Paleolithic Upper
Pleistocene
Flake tools
Blade Tools
Blades and burins
Hunting and
Gathering

8. Lower Paleolithic : Tools
• Early Stage of development
• Stone: Quartzite
• Primary tools: Crude and
primitive
• Handaxe
• Cleaver
• Scrapers

9. Chopper-chopping tools
The choppers are worked on one side (unifacial)
while the chopping-tools are worked on both sides (bifacial).

10. Acheulean Tool-kit
• By about 1.76 million years ago, humans strike
large cores and shape them from around the
edges.
• The resulting implements included a new kind
of tool called a handaxe.
• These tools characterize as Acheulean toolkit.
• the Acheulean toolkit were made for an
immense period of time ending in different
places by around 400,000 to 250,000 years
ago.
• Identified as ‘large cutting tools’

11. Handaxe

12. Raw Material
1. Quartzsite
2. Limestone

13. Lower Paleolithic: Nature of Site
1. Primary : Habitation, Factory Sites, Camps
2. Secondary : River sections, Isolated tools

14. Location of the Site
• River terrasse/ banks
• Hills
• Natural Caves
• Rock shelters
• Almost No sites in Ganga and Sindhu alluvial plain
• Preferred area:
• Source of food
• Water and
• Stone

15. Significant lower Paleolithic sites
Site Location
Bhimbetka Madhya Pradesh
Hungsi Valley Karnataka
Belan Valley Madhya Pradesh &
Uttar Pradesh
Atirampakkam Tamilnadu
Papmiya Tekdi, Maharashtra
Bhimbetaka
Jogdaha
Madhya Pradesh
Bagor
Budha Pushkar
Rajasthan
Nevasa Maharashtra
Renugunta
Karnool Caves
Andhra Pradesh
Singhbhum Jharkhand

16. Atirampakkam
Isampur
Paisa
Belan Valley
Son Valley
Didwana
Newasa
Important Sites

17. Early Palaeolithic Sites: Secondary sites
• Potwar plateau and the Shiwaliks provided important
evidence of dates for lower palaeolithic i.e. 2 m.y.a. .
• Pebble tools found in Jhelum basin (Dina and Jabalpur),
• The river terraces of Beas and Benganga (Himachal
Pradesh) and Ladakh and Pahalgaon in Kashmir valley.
• In lower Sindh, stone tools were found at Jerruck and
Milestone.
• In Rajasthan, around Ajmer and in Luni valley.
• In the Belan valley in Uttar Pradesh,.
• The river valleys and foothills of the Chhotanagpur
plateau, Orissa and also show evidence.
• In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka tools found in inland
areas as well as the coastal areas.
• In Tamil Nadu

18. Animal Fossils and Plants Remains
• Animal Fossils
• Horses
• Water Buffalo
• Nilgai
• Plants Remains
• 40 type of edible plats from Hungsi, Karnataka

19. Settlement and Subsistence Pattern
• In India human lived in open-air sites or in rock or cave
shelters,.
• Example: Madhya Pradesh (Bhimbetka and Adamgarh area).
• The sites were mostly near any source of water.
• V.N. Misra: the rock shelters occupied only during monsoons
and the winters
• V.N. Misra: in summer human groups preferred to camp in the
open.
• these settlements were only a temporary camping sites where
hunter-gatherers returned after moving out for food for a short
while.
• The basic social structure can be a 'band society’.
• Bands are small communities usually consisting of less than
100 people.
• They moved from one place to another hunt and plant food they
gather.

20. Dating of Lower Paleolithic Period
• 2 MYA- to 100,000 years Ago
• Atiramapakkan dated :1.5 MYA
• Potwar Platue: 2.o1 MYA
• Pinjore bed of Shiwalik: 2.4 MYA
• Didwana: 3,90,000 BP
• Nevasa: 350000 BP
• Hiran Valley Gujrat: 1,90,000-69000
• Isampur: 600000-500000 BP

21. Reconstruction illustration of 400,000-year-old shelter from Terra Amata, France

22. Invention of Fire

25. Middle Paleolithic Period

26. Middle Paleolithic
• Gradual changes in tool technology
• Slight innovation in stone technology
• Period: Between about 200,000 BP and
40,000 years ago,
• Flake tools rather than larger core tools.
• Hand-axes were made with exquisite
craftsmanship,
• Smaller and more diverse tool
• Light weighted
• Man: Neanderthalensis

27. Middle Paleolithic: Tools
• Middle Paleolithic
toolkits included
(Purposefully prepared
cores and specialized flake
tools)
1. Scrapers: useful in
preparing hide, wood.
2. Handaxe: small size
3. Points: hafted on to
shafts to make
spears.
4. Bone Tools

28. Middle Paleolithic: Tools

29. Raw Material : Tools
1. Quartzsite
2. Chert

30. Significant Middle paleolithic sites in India
Sr.
No
Sites State
1 Nevasa Maharashtra
2 Bhimbetaka Madhya Pradesh
3 Bagor
Karmali Valley
Didwana
Rajasthan
4 Singhbhum Jharkhand
5 Narmada Valley Madhya Pradesh, and
Gujarat
6 Atirampakkam Tamil nadu
7 Hungsi Valley Karnataka
8 Nevasa Maharashtra

31. Middle Palaeolithic Sites: Secondary
• Middle Palaeolithic tools are found in many parts of the
subcontinent.
• First time in Gangetic region : Kalpi (Jalaun District UP)
• The Hiran valley (Gujarat),
• Potawar plateau (Pakistan),
• The Thar region,
• The Jaisalmer area,
• Patne in the Tapi valley,
• The site of Nevasa,
• Vishakapatnam coast etc.
• In lower Sindh, stone tools were found at Jerruck and
Milestone.
• In Rajasthan, around Ajmer in Luni valley.

32. Way of Life
• Hunting and gathering
• Exploited a wide range of food sources including
meat.
• Chemical analyses of Neandertal skeletons show that
meat was a major part of their diet.
• Probably used animal skins for clothes.
• Occupied the caves and rock shelters in Europe,
Southwest Asia and India.
• It is probably assume that they were capable
of language ?

33. Animals: Middle Paleolithic
1. Elephants
2. Bovins
3. Different kinds of animals,
including rhinoceros, bison, brown bear, and
other big animals.

34. Dating of Middle Paleolithic
1. Atirampakkam: 350,000 BP
2. Didwana: 150000 BP to 144000 BP
3. Kalpi: 45000

38. Burials
• By 90,000 years ago, several
Neandertal cave sites
provide evidence
of intentional burial of
their dead.
• They presumably buried
relatives and friends in
shallow graves
• Preferably in living areas at
the mouths of caves and rock
shelters.
• Frequently, the bones were
stained with hematite
• In nearly half of the 33
known Neandertal burials,
stone tools and/or animal
bones were found in the
graves.
• That they believed in some
sort of afterlife.

39. Upper Paleolithic

40. Upper Paleolithic
• A period of great transition
• Technical Advanced Period
• Tool factory: Blade and Burin
• Parallel side blade: Multipurpose use
• Trend of smaller tools
• Adaptations to Environmental Changes
• Beginning of Art
• Initiation of mobiliary art

41. Characteristic Tools of UPP
Blade Industry
1. Blade:
• Twice as long as they
are wide
• Parallel sides
1. Burin
2. Scrapers
a) Bone tools
b) Antler
c) Shell and
d) Wood

42. Burin
Bone Tools

43. Sr.
No
Items Location
1 Sohan Valley West Punjab (Now in
Pakistan)
2 Narmada Valley Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra and Gujarat
3 Kurnool Caves
Gichchlur
Nellure
Andhra Pradesh
4 Belan Valley Madhya Pradesh and
Uttar Pradesh
5 Nevasa Maharashtra
6 Sabarmati Valley Gujarat
7 Singrauli Uttar Pradesh
8 Mayurbhanj Odisha
9 Hungsi Valley Karnataka
10 Attirrampakam
Kortallayar Valley
Tamil Nadu
11 Pahalgam Kashmir
12 Didwana Rajasthan
13 Hathnora
Bhimbetaka
Adamgarh
Madhya Pradesh
14 Muchchalata
Chintamanu Gavi:
Bone
Andhra Pradesh
Significant Upper Paleolithic Sites

44. 1. Budha Pushkar Lake,
Rajusthan
2. Belan Valley: Chpani
Mando
3. Vindhyas
4. Son River: Baghor
5. Chotanagpur Region
6. Paisara
7. Kurnool
Other Sites

45. Way of Life
• People lived in huts with mammoth bone with floors,
hearths in Europe.
• Bamboo cave in south Africa
• Hunting became specialized, and sophisticated
• Tools for hunting indicate big and small game, and
fishing.
• Wild plant like tubers, fruits, nuts, mushrooms,
insects, and honey etc. might have been gathered
• Food storage was practiced.
• Population increase
• Probably social grouping started
• Man: Homo Sapiens

46. Dating
1. Site 55 Riwat: 45000 BP
2. Son Valley: 12000-10000 BP
3. Kurnool Caves: 19244 BP
4. Kashmir: 18000 BP
5. Overall: 25000-10000

47. Faunal Remains
• Nilgai
• Four Horned Antelope
• Gazelle
• Sambar
• Chital
• Deer
• Barking Dear
• Mouse deer
• Rat
• Pangolin
• Rodent
• Tiger
• Leopard
• Jungle Cat
• Spotted Hyna
• Fishes
• Mongoose
• Sloth bear
• Porcupine
• Horse
• Ass
• Rhinoceros

48. Palaeolithic Art and Cults
• Prehistoric art
marks the
beginning of the
history of arts.
• Initiation: Upper
Palaeolithic Period
• The prehistoric art
was mainly the
rock art which
included
• Cave paintings
• The petroglyphs
• Figurines

49. • Paintings in Bhimbetka. (Cave III F-24 known as
'auditorium cave’).
• Petroglyphs in Konkan, Western Maharashtra
• Lohanda Nala in the Belan valley (UP) found a
mother goddess figurine identified as a harpoon by
Bedarnik and Wakankar.
• Baghor (MP), a rubble-built platform is found with a
triangular piece of natural stone in the centre.
• Beads made from ostrich eggshells are found from
Patne and Bhimbetka rock shelters.
Palaeolithic Art

52. Palaeolithic Art:
Ostrich Eggshell
Petroglyphs in Konkan

53. Engraved Cross Hatched Diamond-
shaped design on the Fluted Core,
Upper Palaeolithic/Mesolithic Period,
Chandravati, Rajasthan (Courtesy:
Prof. V.H. Sonawane)

54. Conclusion
In Paleolithic culture
1. Food: Hunting and Gathering
2. Tools: Stone, Bone, Wood
3. Home: Cave, tree, hills, rivers
4. Bands: Small Communities (100)
5. Don’t have permanent settlements
6. Depending Upon Nature: Animal, Plats and
Landscape
7. No institution: Government
8. Man: Homo Habilas, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal,
Homo Sapiens,
9. Timeframe : 2500000-12000 BP