Palaeolithic Age
(500,000 B.C.–8000 B.C.)
• The Palaeolithic Age commenced from the time
when the earliest man learnt the art of making stone
tools. The greatest achievement of the earliest man
could be traced to his learning as to how to make a
fi st hatchet, the spear and the fi re.
• In India, the Palaeolithic Age developed in the
Pleistocene period or the Ice Age and was spread
in practically all parts of India except the alluvial
parts of Ganga and Indus.
• Food gathering and hunting were the main
occupations of the people of this phase and
Palaeolithic men learnt to use animal skins for
wrapping their dead bodies.
• Man during this period used tools of unpolished,
undressed rough stones and lived in caves and rock
shelters. They had no knowledge of agriculture,
fi re or pottery of any material and mainly used
hand axes, cleavers, choppers, blades, scrapers
and burins. Their tools were made of a hard rock
called ‘quartzite’ and hence Palaeolithic men are
also called ‘Quartzite Men’.
• Homo sapiens fi rst appeared in the last of this
phase and the Palaeolithic man belonged to the
Negrito race.
• Sir Robert Bruce Foot discovered the fi rst Palaeolithic
stone tool in the Indian sub-continent near Madras
in 1863 A.D. The discovery of Indian Pre-history
got a boost after the Yale-Cambridge expedition
in 1935 under De Terra and Patterson.
• The Paleolithic stage has been divided into
Lower Palaeolithic (250,000-100,000 B.C.), Middle
Palaeolithic (100,000-40,000 B.C.) and Upper
Paleolithic stage (40,000-10,000 B.C.) primarily
based on tool typology and technology and also
according to the nature of change in the climate.
• The tools of the lower Paleolithic stage are mainly
hand axes, cleavers, choppers and chopping tools
and covered the greater part of the Ice Age. In this
period the climate became less humid.
• The middle Paleolithic age tools are mainly based
on fl ake industries.
• The upper Paleolithic stage is characterized by burins
and scrapers and a warm and less humid climate.
• Agewise the lower Paleolithic extended upto 100,000
• The Son and the adjacent Belan valley (Mirzapur,
UP) provide a sequence of artifacts from lower
Paleolithic to Neolithic.
• Situated around Bhimbedka hill, in central India
near Hoshangabad on the Narmada River, the
caves and rock shelters have yielded evidence of
Paleolithic habitation.
• At Bhimbetka near the Narmada, a series of
rockshelters have been excavated from caves. This
site lacks in Chopper and Abbevillian hand axes.
• During middle palaeolithic age, Pithecanthropus
or Homo erectus evolved. But this cultural stage
was dominated by Neanderthal Man.
(500,000 B.C.–8000 B.C.)
• The Palaeolithic Age commenced from the time
when the earliest man learnt the art of making stone
tools. The greatest achievement of the earliest man
could be traced to his learning as to how to make a
fi st hatchet, the spear and the fi re.
• In India, the Palaeolithic Age developed in the
Pleistocene period or the Ice Age and was spread
in practically all parts of India except the alluvial
parts of Ganga and Indus.
• Food gathering and hunting were the main
occupations of the people of this phase and
Palaeolithic men learnt to use animal skins for
wrapping their dead bodies.
• Man during this period used tools of unpolished,
undressed rough stones and lived in caves and rock
shelters. They had no knowledge of agriculture,
fi re or pottery of any material and mainly used
hand axes, cleavers, choppers, blades, scrapers
and burins. Their tools were made of a hard rock
called ‘quartzite’ and hence Palaeolithic men are
also called ‘Quartzite Men’.
• Homo sapiens fi rst appeared in the last of this
phase and the Palaeolithic man belonged to the
Negrito race.
• Sir Robert Bruce Foot discovered the fi rst Palaeolithic
stone tool in the Indian sub-continent near Madras
in 1863 A.D. The discovery of Indian Pre-history
got a boost after the Yale-Cambridge expedition
in 1935 under De Terra and Patterson.
• The Paleolithic stage has been divided into
Lower Palaeolithic (250,000-100,000 B.C.), Middle
Palaeolithic (100,000-40,000 B.C.) and Upper
Paleolithic stage (40,000-10,000 B.C.) primarily
based on tool typology and technology and also
according to the nature of change in the climate.
• The tools of the lower Paleolithic stage are mainly
hand axes, cleavers, choppers and chopping tools
and covered the greater part of the Ice Age. In this
period the climate became less humid.
• The middle Paleolithic age tools are mainly based
on fl ake industries.
• The upper Paleolithic stage is characterized by burins
and scrapers and a warm and less humid climate.
• Agewise the lower Paleolithic extended upto 100,000
years ago, middle Paleolithic extended upto 40,000
years ago and upper Paleolithic up to 10,000 BC.• The Son and the adjacent Belan valley (Mirzapur,
UP) provide a sequence of artifacts from lower
Paleolithic to Neolithic.
• Situated around Bhimbedka hill, in central India
near Hoshangabad on the Narmada River, the
caves and rock shelters have yielded evidence of
Paleolithic habitation.
• At Bhimbetka near the Narmada, a series of
rockshelters have been excavated from caves. This
site lacks in Chopper and Abbevillian hand axes.
• During middle palaeolithic age, Pithecanthropus
or Homo erectus evolved. But this cultural stage
was dominated by Neanderthal Man.
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