Acheulian tradition

Also called: Acheulean, Madrasian · Topic: Prehistory: Human Origins and Stone Age Cultures · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Acheulian tradition (also spelt Acheulean) is a Lower Palaeolithic (earliest part of the Old Stone Age) way of making stone tools. Its main tools are large handaxes and cleavers, usually shaped on both faces. In India it was once called the Madrasian industry.

It matters because Acheulian sites in India are among the oldest in the world outside Africa. Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu, dated to c. 1.5–1.7 million years ago, shows that early humans lived in the subcontinent very early.

Explanation

Background: name and origin

• The name Acheulian comes from Saint-Acheul in France, the site where this type of tool was first described. The name is now used for the same tradition everywhere.
• In India the large handaxe tradition was first noticed near Madras (Chennai). So early scholars called it the Madrasian industry. Today "Madrasian" is an old name for the Indian Acheulian.

• Textbooks usually say Robert Bruce Foote found a handaxe at Pallavaram, near Madras, in 1863. This is often called the start of Indian prehistory.

• The makers were hunter-gatherers. They hunted animals, fished and collected fruits, roots, tubers, honey and eggs. They did not farm.

• Most scholars link the Acheulian with early human species before Homo sapiens, usually Homo erectus. This rests on world evidence and is not fully settled for India.

Main features: the toolkit

• Large cutting tools, which mark the tradition:
• Handaxe: a heavy, pear- or tear-shaped tool, chipped on both faces (bifacial) to give a sharp edge and a point.

• Cleaver: a large tool with a straight, wide cutting edge at one end, like an axe blade.

• Smaller working tools found with them: scrapers and choppers.

• Raw materials: quartzite and limestone. Both are hard rocks that break with a sharp edge.
• What the tools did, one job per tool type:
• Chop meat off a carcass.
• Dig out tubers (roots eaten as food).
• Scrape skins clean so hides could be used.
• Cleave bones open to reach the marrow, a rich fatty food inside the bone.

How it changed and ended

• A very long tradition. At Attirampakkam, Acheulian levels date to about 1 to 1.7 million years ago. People stopped living there for a while in between, and nobody knows why. [1]
• Tools get smaller. Over time the big handaxe gave way to scrapers, borers and points (sharp stone tips that could be fixed to a stick and thrown).
• End of the Acheulian at Attirampakkam. Luminescence dating (a lab method that measures when a buried grain of sand last saw sunlight) shows the Acheulian ended there, and a Middle Palaeolithic culture began, at 385 ± 64 thousand years ago. [2][3]

• This Middle Palaeolithic culture lasted until 172 ± 41 thousand years ago. [2][3]

• The same sequence at Bhimbetka. People lived there from the Lower Palaeolithic onward. Smaller tools and new scrapers appear in the Middle Palaeolithic, and blades, borers and burins appear in the Upper Palaeolithic. [4]

Results

• It shows that people lived in India for a very long time. The subcontinent's oldest human settlement dates to about 2 million years ago.
• Better tools gave people more food (marrow, tubers, meat, hides). This laid the base for the later move to points, the bow and arrow and hafted microblades (tiny blades set into a wooden or bone handle).

Time, place and evidence

• Period: Lower Palaeolithic. In India it runs from c. 1.7 million years ago to about 385 ± 64 thousand years ago at Attirampakkam. [2][3]
• Key Indian sites:
• Attirampakkam, Tamil Nadu: c. 1.5–1.7 mya. It lies in the Korttalayar river basin, Chingleput (Chengalpattu) district. It is a key site for the South Indian Lower Palaeolithic industry. [1]
• Isampur, Karnataka: c. 1.2 mya. It has handaxes, cleavers, scrapers, choppers and animal fossils.
• Hunsgi, Karnataka. A well-known Lower Palaeolithic site in textbooks, where tools were made of local limestone.

• Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh. Rock shelters in the Vindhyan foothills, used by people from the Lower Palaeolithic onward. [4]

• How we know:

• Stone tools found in layers of soil.
• Animal fossils at Attirampakkam and Isampur, which show what people lived with and ate.
• Luminescence dating at Attirampakkam, published in Nature. [2][3]

• ASI excavation records for Attirampakkam. [1]

• There are no paintings, beads or writing from Acheulian times in India. Such symbolic evidence comes much later and is linked with Homo sapiens.

Don't confuse with

• Sohanian (Soanian) industry: a Lower Palaeolithic tradition of choppers and chopping tools in the Soan valley (north-west). The Acheulian is known for handaxes and cleavers, so it is the "Madrasian" side, not the Sohanian.
• Middle Palaeolithic: a flake-tool culture (scrapers, points), which replaced the Acheulian at Attirampakkam from 385 ± 64 ka. [2][3] It is not part of the Acheulian.
• Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic tools: blades, microblades and burins (a burin is a stone engraver). These are much later. A burin is never an Acheulian tool.
• Bhimbetka rock paintings: the paintings start in the Mesolithic. [4] Bhimbetka has Lower Palaeolithic occupation, but its art is not Acheulian.

Prelims Hooks

• Attirampakkam: Tamil Nadu, c. 1.5–1.7 mya, in the Korttalayar basin, Chingleput district. It is an Acheulian site. [1]
• Isampur: Karnataka, c. 1.2 mya. It has handaxes and cleavers.
• Madrasian = old name for the Indian Acheulian, from handaxe finds near Madras (Pallavaram).
• Acheulian large cutting tools = handaxes and cleavers. Raw materials = quartzite and limestone.
• The Acheulian ended at Attirampakkam at 385 ± 64 ka, shown by luminescence dating. [2][3]
• Trap: the "first beads", rock paintings and burins are not Acheulian. They belong to later Homo sapiens cultures.

Mains Points

• India is central to world prehistory, not on its edge.
• Acheulian dates of 1.5–1.7 mya at Attirampakkam and 1.2 mya at Isampur place India among the earliest areas outside Africa where humans lived.

• An early end to the Acheulian (385 ± 64 ka) led the Nature study to rethink Out of Africa models. [2] This is useful for GS-I questions on India's place in human history.

• Technology and food go together.

• Heavy handaxes and cleavers let bands get meat, marrow, tubers and hides.

• The later move to smaller tools, points and hafted microblades made hunting safer and more efficient. This change is visible at Bhimbetka. [4]

• Evidence has limits, so say so in the answer.

• Acheulian sites give only stone and bone. They do not show who made the tools, what language people spoke or what they believed.
• Even the name of the maker species and the reason for the gap in occupation at Attirampakkam are uncertain. [1]

Related concepts

• Palaeolithic age
• Handaxe
• Attirampakkam
• Isampur
• Hunsgi valley
• Pallavaram
• Didwana
• Soanian culture
• Hathnora
• Belan valley

Read more

• Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers