UPSC Anthropology | Archaeology part 2 | Narayan Amit AIR 70 | UPSC Anthro Topper Notes

Описание: Title: Middle Paleolithic to Mesolithic: Indian Prehistory & Stone Age Cultures | UPSC Ancient History
Description: Prepare for your UPSC exams with this comprehensive lecture covering the evolution of human culture and technology across the Middle Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic, and Mesolithic periods in India.
• The Middle Paleolithic is defined by the dominance of flake tools and the decline of large core tools like handaxes.
• Key sites such as Nevasa, excavated by H.D. Sankalia in 1956, firmly established the Middle Paleolithic as a distinct cultural phase in Indian prehistory.
• Toolmakers during this period shifted to using smooth, crypto-crystalline silica materials like chert, jasper, and agate, especially in river valleys.
• The Upper Paleolithic, dating roughly to the final third of the Paleolithic era, is characterized by a sophisticated tool industry based on long, narrow blades.
• This period saw the first extensive use of bone tools, including harpoons, eye-needles, and bone points.
• Important sites include the Belan Valley, crucial for establishing chronology, and Renigunta, considered the best type-site for the blade tool industry in India.
• Paleolithic art, first discovered in India in 1867, includes Cave Art (Parietal Art) and Home Art (Mobiliary Art).
• At Bhimbhetka, Upper Paleolithic art consists mainly of linear representations of large animals, painted in green and red.
• The Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age), spanning approximately 9,000 to 2,000 BCE in India, marks the final stage of the hunting and gathering economy.
• The defining tool of the Mesolithic is the microlith—small, chipped stone tools (2-3 cm long) that were hafted to create composite weapons like sickles and barbed arrows.
• Cultural developments included the first steps toward animal domestication and evidence of ritual burials.
• Major Mesolithic sites include Bagor (known for its rich microlithic industry) and Sarai Nahar Rai (one of the oldest Mesolithic sites, providing evidence of communal living).
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