Isampur site was discovered by K. Paddayya in 1983 in Hunsgi valley of the state of Karnataka. Subsequently Paddayya has carried out intensive research at the site and has unearthed evidences of an early Acheulian culture together with absolute date of the culture. He has reconstructed the life ways of the makers of the Acheulian culture who lived at Isampur.
The Site
Geographical location of the village Isampur is on the northwest part of Hunsgi valley. The Stone site is found at a distance of 2 km on the northwest from the village Isampur. The stone site is on a gorge like sub-valley, which Paddayya prefers to call Isampur valley. The Acheulian site is on the left bank of the Kamta Halla and about 750 m away from the foot of plateau on the east side of the valley. The site was strewn with tools of Acheulian tradition. Paddaya had carried out systematic surface studies and nine trenches were laid to get a full picture of the Acheulian culture of the region.
Geological Features
The sections at the trenches and at the naturally exposed surfaces showed that the cultural levels were within a thick deposit of silt, which was darker brown in the lower reaches and light brown in colour on the upper part. The lenses within the silt indicated that the deposition took place through several minor depositional phases. The silt bed was lying over lime stone blocks. A regular Acheulian deposit was found lying over the lime stone block and below 1.5 m thick blackish coloured silt. Middle Palaeolithic tools came from the upper part of the brownish silt, lying over the bed which yielded Acheulian tools. This indicated that early people lived in the valley continuously from Acheulian to Middle Palaeolithic times.
Paleoecology
Evidences suggest that the environment was quite congenial for the Palaeolithic people to select the site for habitation. There was a perennial channel providing water to the people, raw material for making tools and the high ground around to have a view of the valley in search of games and other resource. It seemed that early hominid at Isampur lived on the valley floor near the water channel and closer to the tool making raw material. This area probably was their home base, where they lived, manufactured tools and processed food. They foraged on the surrounding valley and hilly area for food and resources (Paddaya, 2014). Animal fossil remains suggest presence of wild cattle, horse, elephant and deer.
Culture
On the basis of concentration of tools the site is divided into four subzones. Five trenches were dug at the site. Trench 1 was the main trench dug. This trench has yielded major evidences of Acheulian culture. At a depth of 30 to 40 m, the layer of kankary brown silt yielded Acheulian occupation level with fresh artefacts, animal fossils and lime stone blocks. Seven chipping centres were identified. Each cluster yielded cores, large flake blanks, finished tools, hammer stones and waste products. Lime stones formed the main raw material for manufacturing of the tools. Chert and quartzite were used in a limited manner. A total of 13,943 artefacts were collected. Other types were cores, flakes, utilized and or modified flakes. Tool types of Acheulian culture include Hand axes, cleavers, knives, scrapers, chopping tools, discoids perforators and indeterminates. Good numbers of handaxes and scrapers are characteristic of the collection. Knives were made on elongated flakes with blunted back. All these artefacts were used for animal and plant food processing. The typotechnology suggests that the assemblage belonged to an earlier tradition of Acheulian. Absolute date is derived from analysis of the enamel of a bovid teeth. This suggests that the culture at Isampur belong to a very early date between 1.2 and 0.7 mya (Paddayya, 2017).
