Distribution:
The Middle Palaeolithic industries have wide distribution perhaps as wide as the Lower Palaeolithic industries in India. They occur in all the Districts of Maharashtra except the coastal District of Ratnagiri. Further, they occur in several places in the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal and Assam. Northern Gujarat and Kashmir Valley are yet to be explored for the purpose.
The Middle Palaeolithic culture like the Lower Palaeolithic culture existed in river Valleys, foothills, riverbanks and riverbeds. In several places surface sites yielded Middle Palaeolithic tools.
In terms of stratigraphy and typology, the flake industries at a number of sites demonstrate the continuous sequence from the Lower Palaeolithic industries to the Middle Palaeolithic industries.
Environment:
The Middle Palaeolithic folk lived in an environment with forests characterized by rich flora and fauna. People preferred to occupy banks of rivers and streams (Nevasa, Renigunta, Giddalur, Mahaboobnagar, Wainganga and Belan Valley) and foothills (Sisunia Hills) in basaltic regions. Some of them lived in caves (Gudiam in Tamilnadu and Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh).
The climate on the whole does not appear to be very humid. Good grazing grounds supporting smaller as well as larger animals were wide spread. Fossil bones of wild ox at Kalegaon and a skull of wild elephant at Chandoli were found in the Godavari Valley of Maharashtra.
Chronology:
The Middle Palaeolithic culture in India existed during the period from the Middle Pleistocene to Upper Pleistocene.
- De Terra and Paterson (1939) and Movius (1967) studies the river deposits and the tool types supplemented by faunal and floral evidences available in the Sohan Valley and its adjacent regions identified the existence of Middle Palaeolithic in the Sohan Valley in the aggradational phase of the fourth glacial period in the Upper Pleistocene.
- According to Sankalia (1962) the C-14 dates available for the Middle Palaeolithic culture from the sites of Paithan, Imamgoan, Dhon Dam and Mulaoam place the Middle Palaeolithic culture in Maharashtra in between 39000 and 17000 years before present.
- Robert Bruce Foote, Commiade, Burkitt. Krishnaswamy, Sounder Rajan and Sankalia and his students analysed the Geological, straligraphical and typological evidences available in relation to the Middle Palaeolithic in Andhra Pradesh and concluded that the Middle Palaeolithic belonged to the Dry period of the Upper Pleistocene.
Materials:
The raw materials used for the manufacture of the tools of Middle Palaeolitliic culture consist chiefly crypto -crystalline Silicia of various kinds such as agate, Jasper and chalcedony, which have a smoother and more regular conchodial fracture than the somewhat granular quartzites of the Lower Palaeolithic tools. These materials were obtained in the form of river pebbles.
Occasionally people employed fine-grained quartzites were also employed for making tools this variation in raw materials was probably due to changed environment and typotechnology which are intimately linked with people ways of life.
Cultural Diversity:
The Middle Palaeolithic culture in India show’s uniformities as well as diversities. It may be divided Into eight zones or regions or complexes on the basis of variations in environment, typo-technologies and subsistence activities.
- Soan Culture Complex (Soan Valley: flake tools, hand axes, cleavers, and chopping tools).
- Central culture complex (Narmada Valley in M.P and Gujarat hills, forests and several rivers and streams: flake tools, hand axes, points “and borers)
- Luni culture complex (Luni Valley in Rajasthan: flake tools, borers and points.)
- Nevasian culture complex (River Valley in Maharashtra and Karnataka with thick forests: flake tools , blades, points, borers, thin leaf points) which are close to Mousterian traditions)
- Southern culture complex (Tamilnadu: flake tools points borers, scrapers etc.,)
- South coastal culture complex (Andhra and Orissa: flake tools, points, scrapers, an enormous number of borers etc.,)
- Kurnool-Chattisgarh culture complex flake tools and Mousterian tools in plenty.
- Eastern culture complex (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal: flake tools, scrapers, borers and others.)
- De Terra and Paterson in the year 1935 discovered the Soan culture complex.
They excavated Soan Valley and identified it in terrace T4 and called it Evolved Soan. It included an abundant number of thin, slender and more blades like Clactonian flake tools and a few Mousterian flake tools. - The Middle Palaeolithic culture representing the Central Zones includes Narmada Valley and its adjoining places. De Terra and Paterson excavated several sites in Narmada Valley in Madhya Pradesh and they found Middle Palaeolithic tools namely flake tools, scrapers, cleavers, and hand axes in the upper strata 6 and 7 with fine gravel and black soil respectively yielded.
Misra excavated several cave sites in Bhimbetka .in Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh. Cave III had 8 layers of which the 5th layer yielded Middle Palaeolithic tools. A vast majority of the tools were flake tools and the remaining ones were cleavers and hand axes. Excavation at Shivani and Damoh yielded flake tools, hand axes and cleavers. - Misra discovered the Middle Palaeolithic in the Luni Valley of Rajasthan. His excavations at Didwah, Vagan and Kadmali yielded flake tools, borers and points.
- Sankalia discovered the Nevasian culture of Maharashtra and Karnataka. He excavated the banks of river Pravara (near Nevasa), a tributary of Godavari in Ahmednagar District of Maharashtra and identified a distinct horizon. Fine and less cemented gravel overlying thin basal gravel it contained the flake tools industry comprising scrapers, points and blade like flake tools, all different in typo technology, raw materials and sizes. The industry was Levalioisian-based Middle Palaeolithic and hence comes closer to Mousterian character there were thin leaf points Sankalia called this “Nevasian culture”. Many such sites with Nevasian culture were found in Godavari and Pravara river Valleys of which Belpandhari, Chandoli, Suregaon and Kalegaon are the most important sites. The Palaeontological evidence in the form of physical remains of wild Ox at Kalegaon and this skull of wild elephant at Chandoli near Pune show how the Nevasian culture was thriving in dense forest areas. Sankalia , Scshadrh Joshi, Paddayya and others excavated numerous Middle Palaeolithic sites in the river Valleys of Krishna, Bhima, Malaprabha. Ghataprabha and so on and found the existence of Nevasian culture in Karnataka also.
- The Southern Middle Palaeolithic is represented by those present at Vadamadurai and Attirampakkam, Gudiam cave, Poondi and a few other sites. De Terra and Paterson excavated the site of Kartalayer river bank near Vadamadurai the terrace
T2 yielded Middle Palaeolithic tools in the form of post-Acheulian flake tools, several points, borers, scrapers and so on.
Joshi, Banerjee and others excavated the bank of Budidamanuvanka, a small stream near Attirampakkam. The terrace T3 comprising detrital laterite provided Middle Palaeolithic tools in the form of flake tools, points, scrapers, borers and a few long blade-like flake tools. - The South-Coastal culture was spread over- coastal Andhra and Orissa. Timmareddy, Murthy, Issac and others excavated the sites of Renigunta in Chittor District, Giddalur in Prakasham District and Nagarjunakonda in Guntur District, and Nalgonda in Nalgonda District identified the Middle Palaeolithic cultures characterized by flake tools, Mousterian tools and abundant number of borers. Bhattacharya, Mahapatra and Ratha excavated several Middle Palaeolithic sites in Mayurbhunj Keonjhar and Sundergarh Districts in Orissa. The Middle Palaeolithic sites in coastal Andhra and Orissa were covered by forests and low land groups with their distinction of using a tremendous number of borers.
- The Kurnool – Chattisgarh culture was spread across the highlands and thickly wooded contiguous areas in Andhra and Madhya Pradesh. The researches of several archaeologists and anthropologists show that the Middle Palaeolithic in the Kurnool-Chattisgarh zone was quite effective and it included flake tools and plenty of Mousterian-Iike tools. This was entirely a local development quite suitable to the undulating and forest environment.
- Finally the eastern zone spreads across the plains in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, the Southern part of Bihar and the Western part of West Bengal. The excavation of G.R. Sharma in Belan river Valley in Allahabad District, of Chakaldar and Lai in Singhbhum in Bihar and in Bankura and Purulia in West Bengal reveals the presence of Middle Palaeolithic with flake tools, scrapers, Burins and borers.
Summary:
The Middle Palaeolithic in India shows patterns of similarities and differences. Everywhere flake tools removed from prepared cores are common. The Scrapers were made either on simple flake tools or on flake tools with prepared platform or flat nodules and some times on the long edges of flake tools. These different types of scrapers indicate wooded forests where the scrapers were used to make various tools from hard tropical wood.
The stone points found in association with the scrapers are also flake tools but they are not well-developed types so as to use them as missile points. However, the leaf point characteristic of Nevasian culture is exception. The points in general are either simple or tanged. Some simple points were prepared by stone hammer technique while some others by Levalloisian and Mousterian techniques.
Other tool types consisted of borers or awls. In Andhra-Orissa culture, the borers occur in great numbers. Apart from borers there were flake knives of square, rectangular or crescent shape; there were chopper and chopping tools, discoids, small Achculian type hand axes or bifaces and burins. Everywhere the folk were hunters and gathers, but in some areas like Maharashtra-Karnataka, Andhra-Orissa, Kurnool-Chattisgarh and Narmada-Gujarat, the environment favoured presence of large animals and collective hunting.