Palaeolithic age

Also called: Old Stone Age, Paleolithic age · Topic: Prehistory: Human Origins and Stone Age Cultures · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 4 "Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation"

Meaning

The Palaeolithic age (Old Stone Age) is the first and longest phase of the human past. In it, people made tools only by chipping stone. They lived as hunter-gatherers: they hunted, fished and collected wild food, but did not grow crops or keep animals. In India it begins with the oldest human settlement, about 2 million years ago. Textbooks usually end it about 12,000 years ago.

It matters because it shows India was home to early humans from very early times. It also records the first signs of the modern human mind: art, beads, belief and exchange between groups.

Explanation

Background: who they were and how they lived

• Hunter-gatherers. People hunted animals and fished. They also collected fruits, roots, tubers, honey and eggs.
• No farming, no herding. Food came only from what nature offered. So people had to move with it.
• Bands. People lived in bands, which were small groups bigger than one family.
• Shelter. They stayed in temporary camps, in rock shelters (a shallow overhang in a cliff, not a deep cave) and in caves. They built nothing permanent.
• Fire. They used fire for warmth, cooking and light, and to keep animals away.
• Language. They spoke languages. These are now completely lost, because nothing was written down.
• Beliefs. They held beliefs about natural elements such as the sun, rain, rivers and animals. They possibly also believed in an afterlife (a life after death).
• Hunter-gathering did not end everywhere at once. It went on in parts of the subcontinent long after the Palaeolithic. It was still alive when farming and early cities had begun elsewhere, around c. 2600 BCE.

The three sub-phases and their tools

Historians divide the age into three sub-phases. The tools in each one are smaller and better made than in the one before.

• Lower Palaeolithic (earliest phase)
• Big, heavy large cutting tools: handaxes and cleavers.
• Smaller working tools: scrapers and choppers.
• Most tools belong to the Acheulian culture, a tool tradition known for its big handaxes. [2]

• Raw materials were quartzite and limestone. These hard rocks break with a sharp edge.

• Middle Palaeolithic

• Tools become smaller. There are more scrapers, borers and points.

• A point is a sharp stone tip. Tied to a stick, it becomes a projectile (a weapon you throw or shoot).

• Upper Palaeolithic (last phase)

• Blades are long, parallel-sided flakes struck off a stone core.
• Microblades are the tiny version, used to hunt small game.
• Burins are stone engravers.
• At Bhimbetka, blades, borers and burins appear in the Upper Palaeolithic. [5]

What each tool did

• Chopping meat off a dead animal.
• Digging out tubers, which are roots eaten as food.
• Scraping skins clean, so that hides could be used.
• Cleaving bones open to reach the marrow. Marrow is a rich, fatty food inside the bone that other animals could not get at.
• Engraving. The burin cut symbolic marks into bone and shell, including ostrich eggs. It was a tool for making meaning, not for getting food.

How it changed over time

• Stage 1: smaller tools and projectiles.
• Points fixed to sticks let a hunter kill from a distance.

• Hunting became more efficient and less dangerous.

• Stage 2: the bow and arrow. This came late. It sends a light point fast and far, again and again.

• Stage 3: hafted microblades.
• Microblades were struck from glassy-textured rock, which is razor-sharp when freshly broken.
• They were hafted, which means set into a handle of wood or bone.
• Several small blades in one handle made one long cutting edge.

Results: symbolic behaviour

• This behaviour is linked with Homo sapiens (modern humans). It shows they thought about more than food and safety.
• Paintings appear on the walls of caves and rock shelters. They survive in hundreds of caves around the world.
• Pigments (colours) were used to decorate the body.
• The first beads were made of stone, bone and shell. Pendants were made from animal teeth.
• Exchange. Bands traded ornaments with other bands. So groups were in contact with each other and were not cut off.

Time, place and evidence

• Time span in India: it begins with the oldest human settlement, about 2 million years ago. It is usually ended about 12,000 years ago, when the Mesolithic begins.
• Attirampakkam, Tamil Nadu (c. 1.5–1.7 mya)
• This is a Lower Palaeolithic site in the Korttalayar river basin, Chingleput (Chengalpattu) district. It is a key site for the South Indian Lower Palaeolithic industry. [2]
• Its Acheulian levels are about 1 to 1.7 million years old. In between there is a gap in occupation, and its cause is unknown. [2]

• Luminescence dating is a lab method that measures when a buried grain of sand last saw sunlight. It shows that the Middle Palaeolithic began here at 385 ± 64 thousand years ago and lasted until 172 ± 41 thousand years ago. [3][4]

• Isampur, Karnataka (c. 1.2 mya): another major Lower Palaeolithic site.

• Finds at both sites: animal fossils, handaxes, cleavers, scrapers and choppers.
• Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh
• Bhimbetka lies in the foothills of the Vindhyan mountains, inside large sandstone outcrops. [5]
• It was discovered in 1957. It has about 700 shelters in five clusters and is one of the largest stores of prehistoric art in India. [5][6]
• People lived here from the Lower Palaeolithic onward. The paintings run from the Mesolithic to historical times. [5]
• The customs of 21 nearby adivasi villages closely resemble what the paintings show. [5]

• Bhimbetka is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. [5][6]

• How we know: stone tools, animal bones, beads, pigments, rock art and scientific dating. There are no written records.

Don't confuse with

• Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age): it comes after the Palaeolithic, from about 12,000 years ago. Bhimbetka's paintings begin in the Mesolithic, even though people lived there from the Lower Palaeolithic. [5]
• Neolithic (New Stone Age): people farm, keep animals and polish their stone tools. Palaeolithic people only chipped stone and never farmed.
• Acheulian: this is a tool tradition (big handaxes) within the Lower Palaeolithic. It is not another name for the whole Palaeolithic age.
• Rock shelter vs cave: a rock shelter is a shallow overhang in a cliff. Bhimbetka is a group of rock shelters, not deep caves.

Prelims Hooks

• Attirampakkam → Tamil Nadu (Korttalayar basin, Chingleput district), c. 1.5–1.7 mya. Isampur → Karnataka, c. 1.2 mya. [2]
• Attirampakkam's Middle Palaeolithic: 385 ± 64 ka to 172 ± 41 ka, found by luminescence dating. [3][4]
• Lower Palaeolithic large cutting tools are handaxes and cleavers, made of quartzite and limestone.
• Burin = engraver. It was used on bone, shell and ostrich eggs. It was not a hunting tool.
• Bhimbetka: Vindhyan foothills, Madhya Pradesh. Discovered in 1957. About 700 shelters in five clusters. UNESCO World Heritage Site. [5][6]
• Order of tools: handaxes/cleavers → scrapers, borers, points → bow and arrow → blades, microblades, burins.

Mains Points

• Better tools gave more food security.
• The move from heavy handaxes to points, the bow and arrow, and hafted microblades let bands kill from a distance and hunt small game.

• Food became safer and steadier. This freed time for painting, making beads and other symbolic work.

• India is central to the human story.

• Attirampakkam (1.5–1.7 mya), Isampur (1.2 mya) and a Middle Palaeolithic starting at 385 ± 64 ka put the subcontinent at the heart of the debate on human origins.

• The Nature study says these dates reframe the Out of Africa models. [3]

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

• Pictures of "men hunting, women gathering" are modern guesses. Women may have painted the rock art, and men may have cooked or minded children.
• Bhimbetka's living adivasi villages give a useful parallel, but a parallel is not proof. [5]
• Beads, pigments and the exchange of ornaments between bands show identity, belief and social networks long before cities.

Related concepts

• Acheulian tradition
• Handaxe
• Attirampakkam
• Isampur
• Hunsgi valley
• Pallavaram
• Didwana
• Soanian culture
• Hathnora
• Belan valley

Read more

• Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers