India

The earliest human habitation on the Indian subcontinent dates at least to around 500,000 years ago. That dating was established after traces of hominid habitation by Homo erectus were discovered there.

The prehistoric antecedents of Homo sapiens in India are also some seventy-five thousand years old, their existence substantiated by the discovery of remains in northern India. Vestiges of the ice ages (from the second ice age to the fourth) have been detected in the form of large flakes which have been found embedded in boulder gravels in parts of north-western Punjab, the Siwalik foothills, Poonch, and Jammu.

The earliest immigrants to arrive in India were from the African continent, perhaps a little ahead of the main migration of modern humans into the Near East between about 70,000-60,000 BC.

They arrived in southern India probably via the coastline along the northern Arabian Sea, and gradually migrated northwards from there. In all probability there were many subsequent waves of migration over tens of thousands of years.

This led to the inhabitation of the Indian subcontinent by several early human groups. These groups intermingled and their admixture seems to have formed the basis of much of Indians early population.

Naturally this process of continual migration took tens of thousands of years to achieve, and continued throughout the early ice age, the 'Middle Stone Age' and Bronze Age, and it continued into the Iron Age.

Palaeolithic

Indologists classify the Palaeolithic in India as lasting between about 30,000-10,000 BC.

This began with the arrival of early Palaeolithic man. He was probably a Negroid. He dwelt in natural caverns and his sustenance depended upon his hunting and upon the fruits he could find, plants which grew in abundance in the dense forest lands of India.

Bhimbetka rock paintings of approximately thirty thousand years ago in caves in Madhya Pradesh which exhibit the earliest traces of culture in India

The discovery of his rather large, crude tools and implements - pebble tools, flake and coral tools, and other - has occurred in almost all parts of India including Rajputana, Gujarat, the Upper Narmada valley, Bengal, parts of Bihar, Orissa, the Deccan, and southern India (in fact everywhere except, for some reason, the fertile Gangetic plains).

Mesolithic

The Mesolithic (or 'Middle Stone Age') was a semi-transitional period which serves to connect the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. This period was characterised by the use of more refined, smaller silicate-based tools called 'microliths'.

Like his predecessor, the average Mesolithic man was a hunter-gatherer. His imprint on the land in the form of fossils, skulls, and cave drawings has been discovered in places such as Bhimbhetka (MP), Kurnool (AP), Edakal (Kerala), Sanghao (Pakistan), Langhnaj (Gujarat), Adamgad (MP), and Mahadaha (UP).

The average life expectancy of Mesolithic people may have been the late twenties (with a typical life ending anywhere between fifteen to forty). There were constant migrations in search of food, and many individuals would have died of exhaustion, malnutrition, and even osteoarthritis.

Neolithic

During this 'New Stone Age' period, proto-Australoid man appeared. [1]

His tools were more sophisticated, polished, and varied. He started using chisels, hammers, saws, spears, bows, arrows, and even swords which were made of polished stone in his hunting and in conflicts too (including fine-grained dark green trap, diorite, basalt, slate, chlorite, and sandstone).

Evidence for the existence of Neolithic man in India has been found at Galighai in Swat (Pakistan), further south in Sarai Khola, Baluchistan, on the Loess plateau in Kashmir, and in Punjab, Gujrat, Rajputana, Chirand in Bihar, Belan Valley (UP), Manipur, Orissa, and the Godavari and Krishna valleys in southern India, to mention just a few locations.

He subsequently learned agriculture as it seeped southwards and eastwards from the Indus Valley culture, domesticating animals, pottery, and even the painting of objects.

Chalcolithic to Bronze Age

The Chalcolithic ('Copper Age') converged with the Bronze Age. In this period, stone tools were not fully abandoned but discoveries were made in the smelting of metals such as copper and bronze. Microlithic tools like those with parallel-sided blades continued to be used, but there was more reliance on metal in tool-making.

This period also saw the use of pictorial scripts. Evidence from the Chalcolithic has been discovered mainly in Burzahom and Gufkral (Kashmir), Swat, the Damodar and Ajay valleys (Bengal), and Jorwe and Inamgaon (Maharashtra), amongst other locations.

The Ganges plain saw the rise of the first northern Indian kingdoms from around the sixteenth century BC onwards, following the eastwards expansion of areas of Indo-Aryan control

The three collective divisions of the Stone Age were followed by the Bronze Age. This saw the arrival of Caucasoid races such as the Dravidians and Indo-Aryans.

The latter were part of a far bigger wave of Indo-European migration, while the term 'Indo-Aryan' replaces older terminology such as the now highly-misused 'Aryan' term). There was also an influx of Mongoloid races from Central Asia. [2]

Bronze Age man learned metal smelting, and converted a major part of his weapons and tools from stone to bronze and copper. Even the use of 'noble metals' such as gold and silver started during this period. Weapons and tools from this period have mostly been unearthed in northern India on the inwards path of the Indo-Aryans (with only a few exceptions in southern India).

Subsequently, Bronze Age man discovered a stronger and more malleable metal called iron and his tools changed accordingly. This kick-started the Iron Age, a precursor to what can be classed as the historical period.

Main Sources

Majumdar, R C - Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Ltd, 1987

Prasad, L - Studies in Indian History, Cosmos Bookhive, Gurgaon, 2000

Thapar, Romila - Penguin History of India, Volume 1, Penguin Books, London, 1990

Text copyright © Abhijit Rajadhyaksha. An original feature for the History Files.