________________
New Evidence for Early Man in Kashmir
--by H. D. SANKALIA After prolonged investigation of the Ice Age in on the 15th bright half of the month of Shravan (July India and the associated human cultures, De Terra and -August). Travellers' accounts and traditions show that paterson (1939) expressed surprise that no stone tools this pilgrimage is at least 2,000 years old. of early man had been found in the Kashmir Valley proper, though they and previous workers had found
The Liddar rises in the lake at Shishram Nag and abundant evidence of four glacial and three interglacial
flowing through a very deep and narrow defile debouperiods during the Pleistocene in this region and in the
ches at Pahlgam to traverse a comparatively wide and Himalayan foothills known as the Siwaliks and the Pot
spacious valley. Thus the region of deposition has a war plateau. Two reasons were advanced by them to
thalweg of fairly uniform Liddar Valley from its source explain the apparent absencs of man in the valley: the
to Pahlgam was intensively studied by Grinlinton (1923: continnued uplift of the outer Himalayas (the Pir Pan
340). Paterson confirmed his work and went on to jal range) and the extreme cold during the Second
investigate the lower Liddar (De Terra and Paterson Glacial period (De Terra and Paterson 1939:234). Rece
1939:68) and to correlate the deposits with those of nt research has made it necessary not only to abandon
other parts of Kashmir and the Himalayan foothills. this 30-year-old view, but also to reconsider another
Our own investigations have shown that the morpholotheory of far-reaching significance, that of the relations
gical descriptions of these earlier workers for the
deposits at Pahlgam (De Terra and Paterson 1939: 74. hip between the Soan or Chopper-Chopping-Tool Culture and the Handaxe or Piface Culture in northwe
are correct Questions of their interpretation in the light stern India.
of recent work on the Indian subcontinent (e. g. Potter
1970) can be tackled only when resources became Excavations conducted in 1969 by myself and two
available for a detailed survey of the valley. colleagues, R. K. Pant and Sardarilal of the Archaeological Survey of India, Frontier Circle, Srinagar, have The deposit in which the first of the tools was found yielded a massive flake and a crude (Abbevillian) han- is a boulder conglomerate, according to Grinlinton and daxe from wellstratified deposits dating to the Second Paterson a glacio-fluvial deposit laid down during the Glacial and Second Interglacial respectively at Pahlgam Second Glacial in Kashmir. It contains pebbles, boulders, in Kashmir. Plaster casts of these finds were exhibited and angular stones, some f. cetted but only a few bearat the UNESCO conference on Homo sapiens held in ing striation marks. The rocks represented are quarit, September 1969, and they were judged genuine tools quartzite, Panjal trap is, limestone, and schist. The by Bordes; Leakey, and Movius, am ng other distingui- rock flour is calcareous and not very well cemented. shed prehistorians. Further work at Pahlgam and The boulder conglomerate is overlain disconformably by surveys in the surrounding region undertaken in 1970 a deposit about 13 m. thick of brownish clayey silt, by R. V. Joshi, Superintending Prehistorion of the Ar- called "alluvium " by Grinlinton and assigned to the chaeological Survey of India, S. N. Rajaguru, Reader Second Interglacial by Paterson. The lower portion of in Environmental Archaeology, Z. D. Ansari of Deccan this silt contains a few lenticular patches of redeposited College, and myself have produced nine more tools boulder conglomerate, while its top portion has weathefrom deposits attributable to the Second through Third red to a dark-brown soil that forms a district terrace Glacial periods.1* Two of these latter were borers, surface. The top portion of the boulder conglomerate typologically and stratigraphically significant because and the bottom of the brown clay have, except in a they represent a tool-type characteristic of the Middle very few places, become inextricably mixed, and so, as Palaeolithic in peninsular India and were here found, at Paterson said, it is difficult to fix the exact horizon of Ganeshdur, in a glacial scree probably of the Third Glacial.
1. Both reconnaissances were made possible by the award to
me of the Nehru Fellowship in 1968; I take this opporturity of 7 Pahlgam, some 65mi. east of Srinagar in the Liddar thanking the authorities of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund
Valley at an elevatiohof 7,100 ft., is a favou- I am also grateful to B. B. Lal, B. K, Thapar, and T. N. KhaIrite tourist spot. It is also a transit camp for pilgrims,
Zanchi, the Director, and Superintending Archaeologist respectively
of the Archaeological Survey of India, and to my colleagues Z.D. Who assemble here from all parts of India for an
Ansari, S. N. Rajaguru, R. V. Joshi, R. K. Pant, and Sardarilal Whirduous trek to the holy shrine of Amarnath (12,500
for their co-operation in organizing and carrying out these ) to observe the appearance of a large singa (puallus) reconnaissances.
Jain Education Intemational
For Private & Personal use only
www.jainelibrary.org
