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BHARATIYA ASMITA PART II
spread (?). or the independent origination of cultures in different parts of India. Thus 30,000-35000 B. P. is here accepted as the date of the Middle Stone Age Culture.
The existence of these animals, particularly the elephant, and the laboratory study of a few of the river deposits at Nevasa (persnal communication, Rajaguru, 1968) definitely suggests that the climate in Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra at least, was more humid than today and the river flowed at least 15 ft (5 m) above the present water level. Extrapolating this evedence we might say that the conditions elsewhere in India were not (or could not be) radically different.
CHIEF FEATURES OF THE INDUSTRY
(INCLUDING ENVIRONMENT) The lithic tool complex or industry comprises : (a) scrapers of various types on flukes, nodules, and occasionally cores; (b) awls' or borers on flakes, nodules and occasionally cores; (c) points of various types on flakes, nodules and occasionally cores; (d) small choppers; (e) small hand-axes and very rarely small cleavers; (f) burins or burin-fact tools, not always intentionally made (both are rare, and stratified examples are few).
WESTERN EUROPE
On a procentage basis, the industry has to be called a flake industry, though the making of the flake was not essential. For man almost all over India utilized flake-like nodules as well as fiakes for tuinining out a scraper a point or a borer.
Our comparative study may start with the “classical " land, namely western Europe where the Middle Palaeolithic has been known for over a hundred years. Here the stone-using cultures which go under the name of Middle Palaeolithic are the Levalloisian and the Mousterian. For instance, there is the latest review by Francois Bordes (1961). He tells us that the Mousterian may be derived from at least two sources : (a) from the Clactonian complex which flourished during the Riss Glacial; (b) from the Acheulian complex of the Last Interglacial (Riss-Wurm).
The true Mousterian evolved in the Last Glacial, which has four subdivisions (Wurm I-IV) in France, but in central Europe only threc.
In fiaking, direct percussion by a stone hammer figures prominently, though an indirect punch technique was also employed. The full or partical Levallois technique, often called the prepared-core and facetedplatform technique, is evident all over India, bat its use is infrequent and sporadic, and characterizes fine as well as crude material.
Among the Mosterian of Acheulian tradition there are ten types of tools, with a number of small handaxes and side scrapers.
The tools are comparatively small and could have been used in some cases after hafiting in bone or wood handle-for wood-work, skinning and hunting (with a bow (?) and spear). These in the currently fashionable terminology are light-duty tools. For heavy work. Such as felling trees and digging, heavy, massive tools should have been present. These might be of stone or wood and even bone.
In the Evolved Mousterian of Acheulean tradition, the percentage of hand-axes decreases, but the percentage of backed knives and denticulate tools increases. Bladelet cotes now appear.
The typical Mousterian includes (a) points, (b) scrapers, and (c) Levallois A.kes.
The Denticulate Mousterian has (a) side scrapers, (b) denticulate tools, (c) nc.ched or concave-edged tools and borers.
The man wielding these light tools lived not only along the banks of rivers and foothills where the raw material was easily available but sometimes in regions which are towards the interior, and heavily forested today. This could happen because it was easy for man to take these tools along with him.
In India as we have seen above, all the elements of the typical Mousterian and Denticulate Mosuterian are present except the denticulate tools.
While we can only speculate about his vegetarian diet, his animal diet was not very different from his predecessor's. Of frequent occurrence is the Bos(Cow/ bull), and then the elephant antiquus and eveo lysudri- cus and insignis.
The Quina Mousterian has nine types of tools, among which the "lamace " is the most distinctive. Nothing like this has been noticed in the Indian collection so far, though a close, fresh scrutiny of all the collections is necessary.
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