History of Palaeolithic Culture | Prehistory

In this article we will discuss about the history of Palaeolithic culture.

Men are messy beings. Nearly 3 million years ago our ancestors began littering the African landscape with stone tools and gnawed bones. From the first tools to today’s indestructible glass bottles is the archaeological record. The retrieved material needs to be classified into types and styles on the basis of objective and descriptive attribute clusters.

Finally, when these objects are arranged in chronological order, much significant information regarding culture change and evolution started becoming apparent. To use a modern cultural example we can have pots, pans, ladles and the like which can be broadly grouped into a cluster of cooking objects.

Likewise reading and writing objects, sleeping objects, transport objects, etc., can all be formed to reflect upon the relative specialization and pre-occupation of certain functions in the society. In prehistory, unfortunately, no functional clusters are possible because of obvious lack of any functional indication in the objects themselves.

As such, clusters of structural forms are made and through these, attempts are made to reconstruct cultures which have produced these objects. The stone tools which were fashioned by man constitute the main bulk of culture recovered from as early as 2 million years till about 5,500 years ago.

This does not mean that man did not fashion tools from wood or bones as well. Apparently the organic medium on which man may have possibly made tools did not stand the test of time. From around 30,000 years onwards, bones are recovered along with the stones but any possible attempts on this material made by man earlier to this date have been destroyed forever.

The usual tool types and the cultural stages defined on them are as follows:

Likewise, Mesolithic (10,000 – 6,000 B.C.) is defined on the basis of several tool types made on tiny blades often referred to as microliths. These are 3 -5 cm. long, 1 to 1.5 cm. broad and 0.5 – 0.2 cm. thick blades which are skillfully backed and mounted on adequate handles to form composite tools.

During Neolithic (6000 B.C.—4000 B.C.) big axes appear with surfaces perfectly smoothened by laborious rubbing on stones. Thus, we see that various cultural stages are discernible on the basis of type identification alone. It is not very surprising; therefore, that Stone Age typology forms a fundamental aspect of research for archaeologists of this period.

Dating the finds forms one of the major problems of prehistorians. Blissfully this problem is also shared by geologists and other natural sciences. Hence a working archaeologist does not have to get much involved in these age estimation processes and their techniques.

An archaeologist has to be mainly concerned with stratigraphy and erecting a kind of local chronology on the basis of the depositional process. That is, if the stratigraphy is on an old lake bed (generally referred to as lacustrine deposit) the lowest layer is the oldest and the subsequent layers are successively younger.

If it is a river deposit (generally referred to as alluvial or fluvial deposit) in which there are evidences of terraces found on the banks then the uppermost terrace deposit is taken as the oldest and the subsequent terraces (as one approaches to the present flow of the river) as younger; the youngest layer being along the present level of the river.

If such local chronologies can have marker fossils of animals or geological indications of climates under which various strata were laid one can easily construct a climatic succession table for a larger area. All these methods of aging are generally grouped under Relative methods of dating.

Since 1950 when the Nobel Prize for physics was given to Libby for his work on Carbon-14 and its rate of disintegration, a large number of natural sciences have come out with methods of dating in terms of years. These are grouped under Absolute methods of dating.

Without going into these methods and their intricacies we may just look at the calendar constructed by these techniques. The time period spreading from nearly 3 million years till about 10,000 B.C. is called Pleistocene. Geological evidences suggest that there were at least 4 great glaciations that occurred during this period.

The glacial periods covered large parts of Europe and America upto almost 40° to 35° latitude. Areas lying between 20° above equator to 20° below the equator during the same period experienced a very wet stage causing flood in rivers. Evidence of glaciations from the Northern latitudes and high rainfall (pluviations) from the Southern latitudes are known extensively.

The entire period of Pleistocene marks the evolution of both the biological aspects of man and also his culture. Culture from this whole period is called Palaeolithic culture. Evidences from Africa and many new evidences from Europe show that till about the IInd glaciation man did not make any other culture except some very simple pebble tools which can be identified as choppers and the like.

It is only about 300,000 to 400, 000 years ago that the handaxes and cleavers evolve and show a great degree of slow refinement of technique through a long period of time. The handaxe and the cleaver occur with such a perfect internal homogeneity all over Europe, Africa and Asia that they have often been grouped into a single culture called the Acheulian.

Needless to say that we do have evidences of the Acheulians living at the same time with the non-Acheulian chopper types, occurring in neighbouring regions. This left no doubt to the fact that culture in such early part of human history as well shows ramification in preference of adaptation.

If our earlier agreement of bicultural evolution can be recalled at this juncture one can argue that such a bifurcation could have led to the formation of two different species of humankind. In all probability it did, but whenever two groups of humankind met they either bred or bled.

There is no doubt that both breeding and bleeding had occurred but the Acheulians did reign over a larger period for a longer time than the poorly equipped chopper/chopping groups could do. We shall briefly consider these cultural stages in the following sections.

It will be amply clear that the above cultural interpretations can be possible in prehistory only through the two basic methodologies of Typology and Chronology. Here we do not propose to go into the details of these methodologies but instead survey the results emerging from their careful use.

Palaeolithic Culture:

By definition, the cultural debris recovered from the entire period of Pleistocene (Approx. 3 million years – 10,000 B.C.) is termed as Palaeolithic culture. During the first two-third of this period the climate of various continents in our planet was more or less similar to the present day climate.

Man was still in the process of evolution and was more or less of the status of Australopithecus africanus. A semi-erect ape like creature who was totally terrestrial and was most probably a scavenging animal. There are some indications that he might have shaped very rudimentary tools on pebbles or broken bones, (hence the name Osteodontokaratic culture).

The eastern coast of Africa extending from Ethiopia to South Africa seems to be their main area of occupation. Just over two million years ago Homo habilis evolves and shortly afterwards a more advanced form called Homo erectus comes to the scene. These human types were much better equipped to interact and hence adapt to ground living.

Fire was also tamed by them at a later date. This early stage of human culture is termed the Lower Palaeolithic culture. Gathering around fire for equal radiational benefits might have been usually practised, and this might have also helped in consolidating the social bonds in these early human bands.

In Europe this culture is well established by the time of the II glaciation while in India it may have entered not before the II interglacial. Africa, however, remains their main homeland where it appears at least 40,000 years earlier than in Europe. Chronologically Lower Palaeolithic starts around 800,000 years ago and continues till 400,000 to 100,000 years.

It shows two distinct forms evolving almost side by side in the entire Euro-Asia. In Africa, however, such contemporaneity of the two forms is not discernable. Man did have the ability of creating artificial structures, albeit temporary in nature, when a situation demanded but otherwise they lived in the open and hunted animals and collected vegetable produce from the forest.

Europe:

The earliest culture in Europe is known from Clacton-on-sea in England and Terra Amata in the French Riviera. Both these sites indicate fairly large human activity dating from the second glacial period. Various types of pebbles were skillfully broken to obtain a broad sharp edge.

These are recognized as chopper or chopping tool depending on the manner of their preparation. Large flakes were detached to be used without any further dressing. A single evidence of a wooden spear has also been found along with this material from England.

A foot impression in once soft sand at Terra Amata is also exciting evidence known from this culture. This cultural type has now come to be known as the Clactonian culture. By the time the second interglacial sets in, a kind of regional specialization becomes strongly suggestive.

Areas spread over England to almost the river Rhine in Central Europe shows a progressive development of heavy core tools with pointed working end and working done on both the upper and under surfaces (biface) of the specimens. These are called handaxes. This cultural type is named Acheulian on the basis of the site where this type was first recorded in France (St. Acheul).

The Clactonians are earlier in their time of emergence but they continue to survive even when Acheulians have evolved in Western Europe. Mostly they seem to concentrate in Central Europe in addition to a peripheral existence in England as well. Once the handaxes evolve they show a remarkable degree of technological development through time.

From 400,000 to almost upto 100,000 years Acheulians flourish in Europe. The non- handaxe makers in Central Europe also show continued survival of chopper-chopping and large flake tools without much change. Nearly around 200,000 years from today, the Acheulians demonstrate a technological revolution by taking to antler as hammer to break their stones, and also devising a planned preparation of a previously shaped flake.

The former reduced the chance of wastage and breakage of stones in the process of dressing caused by stone hammers and the shattering effect of it. The result was the evolving of very fine medium sized smoothly worked handaxes (often referred to as Upper Acheulian in type).

The latter type was a way to obtain thin previously dressed flakes. A core is taken and dressed on one surface and then the flake is taken out in such a way that the dressed surface forms the upper part of the flake. Since the flake is first conceived and planned and then detached, it is called prepared core technique, or Leualloise technique after the site (in France) where it was first recorded.

The absence of any possibility to date the Palaeolithic succession originally described in the formative stage lead almost all text of books of archaeology to put the event of arrival of man in Europe at least 1 million years later than Africa. Recently, however, some new sites have been discovered and dated which will seem to narrow this enormous gap considerably. This will also require pushing the earliest date of human culture in Africa to almost 2.5 million years from 1.8 million years as Issac had earlier commented.

Some of the few reliable dates are:

SOLEIHAC in France……………………….. 900,000 to 970,000

ISERNIA in Italy ………………………………. 736,000 ± 40,000

CHIILAC in France …………………………… 1.9 million years

The northern boundary of human occupation in Europe appears to coincide roughly with the southern limit of last glaciation. That is, about 54° N in England and 52° N in Wales, Germany and Poland. Sites are found as far north as North Sea coast in Germany and just south of latitude 51°N in Czechoslovakia. This pattern is evidently demonstrative of destructions and re-working of sediments by the repeated advances of Scandinavian ice sheet.

It is generally believed that the intense seasonal variation in the temperate Europe caused short growing season of the vegetable resources and this might have been a strong reason of hominid expansion being more concentrated in the area below 50°N latitude. This might also explain why man arrived so late in Europe from his African home land.

East Africa:

The development of lower Palaeolithic in East Africa is most remarkably demonstrative. Here at Olduvai George almost a vertical evolution of early Chopper- Chopping culture developing into Acheulian (Olduvai Levels III & IV) and Kenya Fauresmith (Late Acheulian of Europe with levalloise flakes) is witnessed.

But the entire succession shows the evolution occurring much earlier than what has just been observed in Europe. It is in the early Acheulian period of both India and Africa that a variety of handaxe with broad cutting edge evolves. These are called Cleavers.

Cleavers are not very common types in European Acheulian. Many of these handaxes and cleavers show a special technique of thinning by removing a large flake from one of the surfaces subsequent to finishing the type. This technique is termed the Victoria West technique.

India:

Lower Palaeolithic in India is known from almost all over the vast country. A vertical evolution of the culture in the manner of Europe and Africa, however, is still not demonstrable. Sohan in the Potwar Plataeu of North West India shows a Chopper-Chopping dominated development occurring around the II inter glacial and continuing till the end of the III glacial. Apparently a developed Acheulian type entered the region around this time.

Thus Acheulian forms co-exist with the Soanian after this date till the end of Pleistocene. The peninsular river systems in India record two main boulder or gravel deposits belonging to the Pleistocene period. The cultural materials are all mixed and distributed between these two levels. Thus, the Palaeolithic period is given a two-fold nomenclature.

Early Stone Age refers to the cultural material occurring in the oldest gravel and corresponds to the Lower Palaeolithic period of the rest of the world. Middle Stone Age refers to the cultural material occurring in the second or last gravel and corresponds to a mixture of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic of the rest of the world.

In the last three decades there have been some new evidences coming about third Pleistocene gravel yielding only Upper Palaeolithic cultural material. The Belan valley in the Pratapgarh district of U.P. near Allahabad, in this regard affords the best stratigraphic succession of the three Palaeolithic stages.

The Early Stone Age tools reported from Kuliana and Kamarpara in Orissa by Sen and Bose and the numerous sites along Burhabalang, Brahmani and Mahanadi valleys reported by Mohapatra have shown a mixed tool assemblage. Clactonian flakes, chopper-chopping tools along with large crude handaxes as well as small symmetrical upper Acheulian handaxes and cleavers have been found to occur within a single stratum.

Several of the flakes within the assemblage are distinctly levalloisean. The pattern observed in other sites in the peninsular region by and large continues to be identical. Early Stone Age in Andhra is known from Giddalur and Nagarjunakonda. In Kortalayar valley (Tamil Nadu) a large industry was described from Attirampakkam and Vadamaduri. In Mysore the Malaprabha and Ghataprabha basins yield numerous sites.

Kibbanhali from north Mysore yields almost identical Lower Palaeoliths. Nevasa in Maharashtra, Narmada basin in Madhya Pradesh, Luni in Rajasthan and Rohri in Gujarat have all yielded numerous Lower Palaeolithic sites. All these areas show fairly high degree of cleavers made on Clactonian flakes besides showing a marked influence of African Victoria west technique in the handaxes.

Sites with living floors like those of Europe and Africa are rare in India. Recently Bhimbhetka and Adamgarh caves of Madhya Pradesh and Hunsgi in Karnataka have yielded some additional information regarding the Lower Palaeolithic culture of India.

It seems almost certain that handaxe/cleaver (Acheulian) and Clactonian flake/Pebble chopper (Sohanian) were not integral part of each other as the depositional river sites would seem to indicate. Bhimbhetka, for instance, has yielded not a single chopper or chopping tool within its otherwise highly evolved Acheulian complex.

India is a vast country with extreme variation of climate and this has caused variation in animals and vegetation in its different regions. It would, therefore, be natural to expect a fairly high degree of regional variation. The nature of occurrence of our data being completely different such variations, if any, are not so far decipherable. In general the Lower Palaeolithic in India affords a much closer similarity to the same of Africa than Europe.

Middle Palaeolithic:

Middle Palaeolithic follows Lower Palaeolithic without any typological break all over the Old World. The earliest date of this culture is dated around 100,000 B.C. and it continues till around 36,000 B.C. The stage of human evolution during this culture is generally attributed to the Neanderthals.

These were relatively heterogenous people who spread far and wide over the entire Euro-Afro-Asia. There is -no doubt to the fact that they were very accomplished hunters and in course of time adapted to small ecozones with overspecialization. It is likely that survivors of earlier human types also mixed with them in some zones.

Yet, whatever are the reasons, this overspecialized group did not survive and the true human race evolved from the earlier stocks. Neanderthals not only loved living in caves but they were sufficiently evolved to have sentiments about their dead. At Shanidar in Iraq a Neanderthal burial yielded evidences of flowers having been offered to the deceased.

In many Alpine sites cave bear bones seem to have been specially arranged for some kind of a religious cult. There are also some evidences of bloody infights between their regional groups. Fire was already tamed by the H.erectus. Neanderthals made the maximum use of it penetrating into the temperate region right within the glacial region.

Europe:

Western Europe, which showed a specialized Acheulian development accompanied by levalloise flakes smoothly enters into a Middle Palaeolithic variety which is quite famous as Mousterian tradition. The name is borrowed from the site name where this tradition was first identified.

It is important to understand that neither Mousterian is a homogenous tradition in Western Europe nor is this known from other parts of Europe. Mousterian is identified as having four distinct varieties right within France. One of this variety, called the Quine tradition, does not even show the famous levalloise flakes which had since long been accepted as characteristic Middle Palaeolithic trait.

Another variety called MTA (Mousterian de Tradition Acheulien) contains several diminutive handaxes with numerous side scrapers and points made on Levalloise flakes. Central Europe, which yielded nearly no handaxes during Lower Palaeolithic, start showing handaxes along with numerous side scrapers during the Middle Palaeolithic stage.

Significantly levalloise flakes are not at all preferred in this region. Instead a new refined type makes its appearance. This is an extremely thin bifacially flaked leaf like point which appears in the south German regions and then spread to Hungary and Rumania during the subsequent cultural stage.

In small pockets of Yugoslavia and Hungary the Middle Palaeolithic is characterized by tiny side scrapers and points prepared on pebble flakes. East Europe and Ukrania, on the other hand, show a parallel French type Mousterian development. It becomes immediately apparent that Middle Palaeolithic in Europe does not represent a simple or similar tradition.

Either there were different kinds of populations already showing the formation of distinct adaptation strategies and hence distinct social formations, or Middle Palaeolithic represents the workmanship of Homo neanderthalensis (in France)and archaic sapiens and east European Neanderthals (in Ukrania and white Russia). Skeletal evidences seem to indicate that there indeed was more than one type of human kind (in biological sense) living in Europe during this period.

East Africa:

The third pluviation marks the disappearance of handaxes and cleavers from East Africa. A distinct regionalization sets in at this juncture. In Kenya occurs a clear Mousteroid development with levalloise technique. This is identified as Proto-Stillbay and Kenya Stillbay.

In Uganda, on the other hand, handaxes continue to occur with levalloise flakes worked into side scrapers, points and knives. This tradition is identified as Sangoan. Very soon a microlithisation sets in both Kenya and Uganda. These micro-blades along with broad blade tools constitute the Upper Palaeolithic of this region.

India:

Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age of India as a separate culture tradition was not identified till as late as 1960. Although a flake culture as a possible stage in Indian Palaeolithic succession was implicit in Cammiade and Burkitts’ reporting of Andhra material in early thirties of these centuries. It was only in 1956 that Sankhalia demonstrated the stratigraphic context of this flake culture. Since then we have now almost the entire India surveyed and a fairly good understanding of this period.

Middle Palaeolithic forms the second and the last demonstrable cultural phase of Pleistocene. The only carbon-14 date available for this period (from Dattawadi in Pune) shows it to be rather young in age. That is, unlike Mousterian in France which occurs around 90,000 years ago, the Indian Middle Stone Age gives a date of merely 36,000 years.

Most authorities believe that either the date is not reliable or the layer which is dated is a later episode and it has incorporated earlier and older Middle Palaeolithic material. An important characteristic of this age is the total change of raw material. Almost all over India the Middle Palaeolithic tools are made of such glossy rocks as jasper, flint, obsidian or chalcedony.

Since our sites are mostly depositional and not original living floors, this change of raw material even if it is gradual in reality appears to be sudden in nature. At Bhimbhetka, one of the few sites with primary living floor from India there is a distinct development of an Acheulian which is typically Middle Palaeolithic in its flake element. There is no such cent percent change of raw material observed here. This Acheulian is like Fauresmith in East Africa which precedes proto-stillbay.

As far as typo-technological character of this age is concerned no remarkable change seems to occur from the preceding culture. While flakes are produced by Levalloise technique in some areas, in other areas this technique seems to be totally absent. The most predominant type is a large variety of side scrapers, borers and points in this order.

In many of these side scrapers a projected point at one of the corners of the flake seems to have been specially formed. This type is referred to as scraper-cum-borer. At some places such Lower Palaeolithic types as handaxes, choppers and discoid have also been found, even though now they have been produced in the changed raw material.

The important stratified sites of this age come from Maharashtra, i.e. from Godavari valley and its tributaries. Nevasa, Bel Pandhari, Suregaon, Kalegaon and Nandur Madhmeshwar may be mentioned as few of the many famous type-sites from this area. Numerous Middle Palaeolithic sites from the Malaprabha and Ghataprabha basin of northern Karnataka also show the same cultural features.

Orissa and Andhra show almost a total disregard for levalloise technique. Here the tools continue, in many cases, to be prepared on Lower Palaeolithic raw material (i.e. Quartzite) and show no appreciable change in size. Handaxes and cleavers are also common in Middle Palaeolithic of this area.

Tamilnadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat are abundant in Maharashtra- Karnataka variety of Middle Palaeolithic. Recently several typical Middle Palaeolithic sites have also been brought to light from Bankura and Purulia districts of West Bengal. Mrs. Allchin has added another series of finds from the Rajasthan desert extending in W. Pakistan.

Middle Palaeolithic in India, therefore, can no longer be considered as an isolated phenomenon as Subbarao thought in the Sixties. It is a well-developed cultural stage of Indian Palaeolithic period. Regarding its origin earlier authors were all inclined to subscribe to an exogenous theory linking it with the Sanghao finds of Pakistan or the Tahsik-Tash of Central Asia.

With the phenomenal increase in the number of these finds it would appear that there is little doubt about its being developed indigenously in at least the peninsular India. Contact with West Asia for such areas as Punjab, Gujarat or even Rajasthan may be considered as a possibility until more areas of this culture are unearthed.

Upper Palaeolithic:

It is a cultural phase which starts around 36,000 B.C. all over the old world and ends around 9,000 B.C. That is, it has a duration of barely 27,000 years which is less than 3 per cent of the duration of Lower Palaeolithic phase and 6 per cent of the duration of Middle Palaeolithic phase.

Yet in this small duration archaeologists have identified numerous traditions developing and spreading all over. Upper Palaeolithic is authored by fully evolved human race viz., Homo sapiens. It is almost certain that the previous evolutionary stages like the variety of the Neanderthals were totally wiped out by this full grown human group.

The scientific attention paid to the otherwise incredible cultural belief of the Nepalese and Tibetan of the existence of an abominable snowman called “Yeti” is primarily based on the suspicion of a possible run away Neanderthal group surviving in isolation. Apparently such a possibility is difficult to entertain as Neanderthals were culturally much more advanced.

The early Homo sapiens were called Cro Magnon man after the name of the site (in France) where it was first recorded. Both culturally as also biologically these early human groups slowly differentiated to form different human races with their distinct culture. The idea of race is based mainly on perishable features such as skin colour, hair form, face and its relation to the orientation of nose and eyes.

In skeletal material most of these morphological features are not demonstrable and hence many authorities do not accept these evidences as conclusive of racial differentiation. It is likely that a large headed generalized type was the emergent man which due to migration and subsequent adaptation within different climates developed specialized Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid features.

The occurrence of stone using tribals with typical Australoid features in Japan (Ainu), Philippines (Aeta) and Ceylon (Vedda) could be taken as an example of Mongoloid differentiation being caused by long specialization of a different group somewhere in the North- Eastern Asiatic region. We are still quite a distance away from conclusively demonstrating how this racial differentiation took place in the past.

The biggest achievement of these early men was in terms of intensifying only selected aspects of the econiche they adapted themselves to. Intensification of exploitation in contradistinction to extensification requires progressive technological evolution. Areas where such rapid technological growth is evidenced, therefore, can be taken to be more in equilibrium with the environment at a generalized level of economy.

It is important to emphasize that the social structure and the network of relationship that maintains solidarity of generalized economic pursuits become more important. In Europe, while France demonstrates a development similar to the former (Intensification), Central Europe and Balkans maintain a situation similar to the latter type (Extensification).

The major development of this period besides the demise of the Neanderthals and the appearance of anatomically modern man can be summarised as follows:

(i) The expansion of humans into most of the world’s inhabited areas, including the New World and Australia.

(ii) The relatively sudden and widespread appearance of figurines and other artifacts reflecting art and rituals.

(iii) The appearance of a wide range of bone tools including eyed needles, fishing tools and harpoons.

(iv) There was a decided step towards organizing human groups in closely tied kinship organization (only indirectly indicative).

Europe:

In France there is increased ramification of various traditions in this period. Mousterian is followed by Perigordian tradition-rather poor in art and bone objects. Perigordians used to blunt a sharp border of the large blades they became expert in removing. Almost parallel to the Perigordian develop the Aurignacians who never learnt to blunt their blades.

Aurignacians retouched their blades instead and made many bone tools of which a variety of lance heads on ivory are quite famous. The Perigordians and Aurignacians are suddenly replaced by the Solutreans who prepared fine paper thin leaf points with pressure flaking. These leaf points are so finely prepared that in European prehistory they have come to be nick named as Laurel leaf and Willow leaf.

Solutreans leave the scene as suddenly as they arrived after a brief stay of 2000 years. The Magdalenians finally take over the entire Western Europe. These Magdalenians showed a decided tilt in preferring bone tools to those on stones. Further, art executed both on their tools as also on cave walls and ceiling reaches its culmination during this period.

Most of the Upper Palaeolithic cave art is restricted in the Franco-Cantabrian region (South France & North Spain). These, as a rule, do not depict many human forms. Mostly animals that too, horse, bison and reindeer are preponderantly executed. Many of these show animals which are wounded and this has been interpreted as being indicative of the practise of sympathetic magic by the people.

There are also some evidences of initiation rituals having been performed in these caves. The caves of Lascaux and Font-e-gaum in France and Altamira in Spain have been studied by many experts and all agree to their function being mainly esoteric in nature. There are numerous specimens of pierced batons found in this culture. Many authorities believe that these could be the rods used by band chiefs as scepters of authority.

On this assumption these are named as Baton de-commandment. Towards 10,000 B.C. the climate in Europe starts undergoing a drastic change. Large animals were either dying out or migrating to the polar region. Man had to shift his interest to smaller animals. This required a change in his tool kit and thus evolved the Azilian tradition with its microliths.

There is a distinct indication in this period of giving up mass as a clumsy aspect rather than being useful. These tiny tools were used in combination and hafted on organic handles to form light and efficient tools. This emphasis towards lightness can be taken to indicate the evolution of bow and arrow. Indeed many Azilian cave painting show the use of bows and arrow.

East Africa:

The Proto-Stillbay of the last pluvial in Africa smoothly gives rise to the Capsian in Kenya and Sangoan in Uganda. These traditions show a strong emphasis on blade tools. End scrapers and blunted back knives of various kinds are found in plenty. Bone tools or art executed on them are not so pronounced as in Upper Palaeolithic Europe.

Further, Microliths start occurring in abundance in all throughout the Upper Palaeolithic in East Africa. Ostrich egg shells or poorly fired pottery is also known from some of the younger levels. A true more clearly discernible form the Lower Nile region in the north than in Kenya and Uganda. Capsian industries form the former area shows the Solutrean type leaf points from a much earlier date than in France.

India:

Upper Palaeolithic in India still remains to be undoubtedly confirmed on stratigraphic ground. Large blades and various Upper Palaeolithic types made on them had been found from as early as 1932 when Cammiade and Burkitt described their culture scheme for Indian Palaeoliths.

The Series III of these authors included the Upper Palaeolithic types only, but in the absence of a proper stratigraphical context for these types they had either been described within Middle Stone Age or pushed into Late Stone Age. Since then large number of in-situ finds of Upper Palaeolithic blades have been reported from Rajasthan, Andhra and south east U.P.

At Bhimbethka a distinct Upper Palaeolithic layer overlies a flake dominated Acheulean industry. In Andhra in a cave site called Muchchatta Chintamanu Gavi a cultural layer containing more than 90 per cent bone tools was reported recently. These bone tools are, however, not so well finished as the ivory or antler tools of temperate Europe.

Almost all archaeologists today agree about the existence of an Upper Palaeolithic cultural stage in India. It is only a matter of time before all these finds would be chronologically established within Pleistocene. Till then we agree that blades, burins or even simple bone tools formed the main cultural character of the people who took over from the Middle Palaeolithic people. A slow evolution from the preceding culture seems to be more than apparent in almost all the places of its find.

Like Africa we can surmise that a specialized bone working and art did not develop in regions which were more forested and were along the sub­tropical belt. It is a matter of great regret that till today we do not have no adequate fossil finds from India to attest the authorship of any of our Palaeolithic stages. Furthermore, social formations or archaeological indications thereof are too rudimentary to form a meaningful interpretation.

In the sequel we need to recount the basic social features of men for these 3 million years of his past cultural history. Archaeologists cannot dig out a social system nor can they expose the belief structure of the tool makers. Ethnography of stone tool using communities from contemporary world can throw some strong possibilities. Societies have been classified into Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms and States in an evolutionary order.

The band organization which happens to be the simplest must have been the main type of organization of man during the entire Palaeolithic period. In this type of organization there are minor differences among members in the community in terms of prestige. No one has any greater claims to material resources than anyone else. In most of these societies older males who are good providers gain the most respect, but they have no political power.

Territoriality, ceremonialism and descent reckoning are usually very weakly developed. Division of labour is along basic age and sex lines and the economic structure is simple. Exchange of gift acts as alliance mechanism but mainly on reciprocity basis.

The granting of sexual access to wives or similar procedure (e.g., exchange girls for mating) may be one of the frequently used alliance mechanism. One of the most impressive things about bands is their stability and long term success. For a million years this was the only form of cultural organization.

In the succeeding period Mesolithic people underwent many significant changes in their adaptation strategies but the band organization did not change significantly till the onset of full-fledged agriculture.

To conclude, it will not be out of place to point out that economic progress and hence cultural progress has always been linked with surplus economy. This has led to a stereotype of the ‘hunting-gathering’ cultures being considered as almost prehuman in condition. And the image of a nomadic hunter, his life filled with insecurity and disorder is a deep seated one. Lack of material possessions is visualized as reflecting a chronic poverty. His society has been considered as most barbaric.

Anthropologists have now been able to systematically uproot these views. Studies in Kalahari Desert Bushmen have shown that only fifteen hours hunting and gathering produces enough food to sustain a small band for a full week. Studies among the Australian aborigines likewise shows that although a complete stone using hunter-gatherer in economy these people had a very complex social and kinship structure.

Some philosophical writings in human history have equated the invention of agriculture with true “Fall of Man” in order to emphasize the positive aspects of the hunting and gathering culture. The most successful adaptation which for two million years or more had ensured a relatively secure and equitable existence for man.

Palaeolithic Art:

The earliest empirical evidence of art in mankind is recorded from as early as the late Lower Palaeolithic (200,000 years ago) in the form of some engraved series of lines on a mammoth rib. The full flowering of this skill, however, occurs only during the Upper Palaeolithic period (36,000 years ago). Incidentally, this coincides also with the time of emergence of biologically modern man.

This break is best recorded in the numerous rock shelters and caves of France and Spain. Countries previously neglected as “back water” of civilization have for long been not properly explored by experts. In the recent years similar cave paintings have been found from a cave called Apollo-II near Orange River in South Africa, from Naih cave in Borneo and also from Bhimbhetka from India.

Although all these are not of comparable dates, their existence all throughout the Old World is enough evidence of the fact that the creative urge was common to all mankind. Further, this seems to have always been more keen on re-creating the animal world around man rather than his own self. The various female figurines nick-named “Venus” are one of the very few exceptions to this rule.

Art executed on movable objects, also referred to as Home art includes these female figures, ivory arm bands and lockets with engraved designs, hair pins, pierced shell and animal teeth necklaces, and a variety of sculptured animal shapes. The cave art or the art executed on cave walls are never so specific.

Besides, large- panels of multi-coloured animals, these show several representation of palm prints. Many of these prints show amputation of fingers. There are many lined figures, usually referred to as tectiforms, which could be the representation of valva, or trap or even huts.

Most of these art executions represent large herbivorous animals. More often than not these are super imposed and are drawn in complete disregard of the earlier work. In some cases the superimposed figure use convenient parts of the earlier drawing or painting to complete the new one. Another important characteristic of these works of art is that the orientation of the object depicted is not considered.

That is, a horse drawn standing on a horizontal plane has a bovid superimposed with its legs vertically opposite those of the horse. The scales of representations are also completely arbitrary and do not conform to the real sizes of the animals. For example, a small rhinoceros may be superimposed on a huge horse. Another feature of Palaeolithic art is that these are usually found deep inside the cave where it is impossible to reach without crawling through steep ascending or descending crevices.

Palaeolithic art gives the earliest indication of the mind of Prehistoric man. Circumstantial evidences or arrangement of debris have all thrown indications about the Prehistoric society but his mind, by far, remained unknown to the analyst. His agonies or for that matter his sources of ecstasies will never be known to us. His art is the sole window we have to his mind, and hence is its significance.

An interpretation of these art works has not been very easy without any clue of the part human behaviour or psychology plays. With an increase of ethnographic studies, archaeologists rushed to conclude that the life of Prehistoric people could be comparable to the primitives of today surviving at the lowest level of economy.

This eventually led to the drawing of ethnographic parallel in non-economic spheres of life as well. Some authorities, had therefore, concluded that man painted because he had basic needs and also anxieties to meet. That is, when a hunting ritual was done on an engraved animal figure in the cave it helped the artist to capture it in actual hunting.

Similarly, the initiation rites of youths in the presence of these hunting scenes by way of some kind of hunting practice gave an assurance to their manhood and to their need of being able to hunt successfully in future. Sympathetic magic or totemistic theories are some of the other explanations given as causative forces for primitive art.

After one surveys all these analyses of art, one finds that contrary to what we expected nothing substantial can really be revealed about prehistoric lifeways from their art. All one can say is that man was capable of cumulative symbolic recording of objects, events of phenomena.

His mental preoccupation involved hunting animals; fertility in man or may be in the entire biological world; and also identify some animals symbolically as belonging to his ancestry or having special boon granting a relationship with him. Initiation cannot be directly demonstrated but preoccupation with life after death is strongly indicative.

The symbolic world reconstructable for early man does not show any remarkable difference from the same in man in preindustrial world. Many authorities, therefore, claim that a proper social structure defined with kinship relations may have already evolved during this period, i.e. at least 4000 years before agriculture started.

We may not go that far in the absence of a demonstrative evidence of structured social group. Instead, we may suggest that those socio, psychological ingredients which form a proper peasant after agriculture was adopted did not evolve merely with the adaptation of productive economy but was ingrained in humanity much earlier—may be even as early as the closing of Palaeolithic period (8000 B.C.).