CHAPTER 2 - PREHISTORY: THE HARAPPAN CULTURE AND THE ARYANS

CHAPTER II

 

Primitive Man

North India

1.     Like prehistoric Europe, first surviving traces of the man left in the II Interglacial Period (more than 100,000 years BC).

2.     “Traces” = paleolithic pebble tools of the Soan Culture (named after a river in Punjab where they were found in large numbers).   

·      Resemble tools widely distributed all over the Old World, from England to Africa and China. Old World means that part of the world that was known before the discovery of the Americas, comprising Europe, Asia, and Africa.

·      No human remains found in association with the tools (unlike the industries which have shown to be the work of primitive anthropoid types, such as the Pithecanthropus of Java and China).

South India (“Madras Industry”) (Industry = In the archaeology of the Stone Age, an industry or technocomplex is a typological classification of stone tools.)

1.    Another prehistoric stone industry

2.     Not conclusively dated, but may be an approximate contemporary of Soan culture.

3.     Core tools e.g., fine hand axes (made by striking off flakes from a large pebble)

4.     Much better command over material than Soan men.

5.     Affinities with similar core tool industries in Africa, Western Europe, and southern England, where it has been found in association with more advanced type of man – a true Homo Sapiens.