4. The Lithic Age

The Old Stone Age

• Man has been living in India from 500,000 B.C. As tools of unpolished, undressed, rough stones have been found in south India and Soan or Sohan river valley in Pakistan used for hunting, cutting and other purposes as he has no knowledge of cultivation and house building.
• This phase continued till 8000 B.C.
• Palaeolithic tools could be as old as 100,000 B.C. Found in Chotanagpur Plateau and even in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.
• Animals remains found in Mirzapur district in UP show that sheep, goats and cattle were domesticated around 25000 B.C. And in earliest Palaeolithic phase man lived on hunting and food gathering.
• The Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic culture of India developed in Pleistocene period or the Ice Age which came immediately before Holocene or the recent period in which we live and began about 10,000 B.C.
• In Pleistocene period, ice sheets covered a great portion of the earth's surface, but in tropical regions were free from ice and they underwent a period of great rainfall.

 

Phases in Palaeolithic Age

• The Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic is divided into 3 phases according to the nature of the stone tools used and also according to the nature of change of climate.
• The Lower Palaeolithic or the Early Stone Age covers the greater part of Ice Age and its characteristics are the use of hand-axes and cleavers found in Soan river valley in Pakistan and Belan valley in Mirzapur district UP.
• The Middle Old Stone Age or Middle Palaeolithic are based on varieties of scrapers made of flakes found in Soan valley and several places on the river Narmada and some places south of river Tungabhadra.
• The Upper Palaeolithic phase was less humid when climate became slightly warm and characterised by the use of blades and burins found in Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bhopal and Chotanagpur plateau.
• It would thus appear that the Palaeolithic sites are found in practically all parts of country except the alluvial plains of the Indus and the Ganga.

 

The Late Stone Age

• The Upper Palaeolithic Age came to an end with the end of the Ice age in 8000 B.C. And the climate became warm and dry.
• From 8000 B.C. Began an intermediate stage in stone age culture called the Mesolithic Age intervened as a transitional phase between the Palaeolithic Age and the Neolithic age, also called the Late Stone Age.
• In India it started about 8000 B.C. And continued upto 4000 B.C. Characterised by microliths tools found in good numbers in Chotanagpur, central India, and also south of the river Krishna.
• On the northern spurs of Vindhyas in the Belan valley all the 3 phases of the Palaeolithic followed by the Mesolithic and then by the Neolithic have been found in sequence.

 

The New Stone Age

• This settlement is not much older in than 6000 B.C. In India and people of this age used tools and implements of polished stone.
• Based on the type of axes used, 3 important areas of neolithic settlements are notified one is Burzahom, in the valley of Kashmir where they used tools and weapons made of bone too. Other place where bone implements are found is Chirand, 40 km west of Patna.
• The people of Burzahom used coarse grey pottery and buried their domestic dogs along with their masters about 2400 B.C. But those used in Chirand are not earlier than 1600 B.C. And they possibly belong to a stone-copper phase.

• The second group of people lived south of the Godavari River settled on tops of granite hills or on plateaus near the river banks.
• They along with stone axes and blades also kept baked earthen figurines suggesting they kept a large number of cattle, goats and sheep.
• The third area is in the hills of Assam, in Garo hills of Meghalaya, in Mirzapur and Allahabad districts of UP.
• Neolithic settlements in Allahabad district are noted for cultivation of rice in 6th millennium B.C.
• The neolithic phase seems to have covered the period from about 2500 B.C. To 1000 B.C.
• The neolithic settlers in Piklihal were cattle herders and domesticated cattle, sheep, goats etc. And set up seasonal camps surrounded by Cowpens made with post and stakes.
• The later neolithic settlers were agriculturists who lived in circular and rectangular houses made of mud and reed and produced ragi and horsegram.
• Hand-made pottery is found in the early stage and later used footwheels to turn up pots.
• Some of the important crops including rice, wheat and barley came to be cultivated in the subcontinent in this period and a few villages appeared in this part of this world.