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After the pioneering archaeological work carried out by Louis Leakey (1903–72) and Mary Leakey (1913–96) at the Olduvai Gorge in the Serengeti plain of northern Tanzania, researchers became increasingly convinced of the hypothesis of Africa being the geographical cradle of human origins, as the following two passages attempt to clarify.

1) The rise of modern humans is a recent drama that played out against a long and complex backdrop of evolutionary diversification among the hominids, but the fossil record shows that from the earliest times Africa was consistently the centre from which new lineages of hominids sprang. Clearly, interesting evolutionary developments occurred in both Europe and eastern Asia, but they involved populations that were not only derived from but also eventually supplanted by emigrants from Africa. In Africa our lineage was born and, ever since its hominids were first emancipated from the forest edges, that continent has pumped out successive waves of emigrants to all parts of the Old World.

Source: Ian Tattersall, ‘Out of Africa Again . . . and Again’, Scientific American, 276 (April 1997), 60–7.

Reproduced with permission. Copyright © (2016) Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved. 2) . . . all the genetic data shows the greatest number of polymorphisms in Africa; there is simply far more variation in that continent than anywhere else. You are more likely to sample extremely divergent genetic lineages within a single African village than you are in the whole of the rest of the world . . . Why does diversity indicate greater age? [Taking the example of a hypothetical Provençal village, we can ask] why do the bouillabaisse recipes change? Because in each generation, a daughter decides to modify her soup in a minor way. Over time, these small variations add up to an extraordinary amount of diversity in the village’s kitchens. And – critically – the longer the village has been accumulating these changes, the more diverse it is. It is like a clock, ticking away in units of rosemary and thyme – the longer it has been ticking, the more differences we see . . . when we see greater genetic diversity in a particular population, we can infer that the population is older – and this makes Africa the oldest of all.

Source: Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, New York: Random House, 2003, 39.

The Palaeolithic era

The prehistoric period for all regions of the world is characterised by the gradual increase in the human ability to shape tools from stone, which is why most of the prehistoric period, from the time of the first tool-making hominins 2.5 million years ago, is called the Stone Age. Owing to the difficulties posed in studying such a long period, archaeologists have divided it into three parts: Old (or Palaeolithic), Middle (or Mesolithic) and New (or Neolithic) Stone Ages. The Palaeolithic, being the longest of the three, is itself further sub-divided into three sub-periods, Lower Palaeolithic (the earliest period of the Old Stone Age), Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic (the most recent period of the Old Stone Age). The period divisions do not apply uniformly to all parts of the world because, owing to factors such as time lag, climatic vagaries, great distances or numerous geographical and physical barriers, the peoples in different regions of the world progressed at varying paces. We can affirm that Africa was the first region in the world to display characteristics of the Lower Palaeolithic, but that approximates the limits of our chronology. Even today there are isolated groups of people whose skills lie essentially in working with stone artefacts and who are considered as still living in the Stone Age. The Stone Age, theoretically, comes to an end when human beings start working with metals such as copper, tin and iron.

In the context of Indian and South Asian history, we may be justified in saying that the Stone Age began around 500,000 years ago, assuming that the tool-making members of Homo Erectus had then arrived, and that it lasted until at least the third millennium BCE, at which time we come across copper objects from the Harappan civilisation. A large number of prehistoric sites in south Asia have been unearthed and excavated by archaeologists over the last 150 years. These sites bear testimony to the vast geological and geographical diversity of the sub continent. Very few human fossils have been discovered, with two notable exceptions: first, the Narmada man, a 250,000-year-old fossil of a Homo Erectus discovered in the valley of the Narmada River in Central India, and, second, a 34,000-year-old fossil of the earliest Homo Sapiens in Sri Lanka (Coningham 2005: 522). The Palaeolithic era of the Stone Age lasted the longest of the Stone Age sub-periods, stretching until about 26,000 BCE. Although we have very little evidence of human remains from most of the Palaeolithic era, the remains of fauna fossils have been recovered in great numbers, giving vital clues to researchers about climatic conditions and their effects on landscapes; we also have a variety of stone implements from all the sub-periods of the Palaeolithic era, unearthed from different sites in south Asia (see Map 2.1). The two predominant utensils of the Lower Palaeolithic era were pebble tools and hand axes. Extensive deposits of pebble tools and choppers were discovered in the Soan river valley in Pakistan, and the hoards found there and at other sites are collectively known as the Soan Culture (Allchin and Allchin 1982: 15–16, 36). A later, more advanced, hoard of the Middle Palaeolithic Era, consisting of flake tools, cores, scrapers and bores, is generally termed the Nevasan Tool Culture, named after the site of Nevasa in the Godavari river valley (Allchin and Allchin 1982: 47–50; Ray et al. 2000: 143–7). Further skills of sharpening the cutting edges of tools such as blades and burins

were revealed by the artefacts found at the Upper Palaeolithic Era site of Patne in Maharashtra (Kachroo 2000: 73).

The evidence of what is generally known as the Acheulian technology of making sharp, stone hand axes is also found at many south Asian archaeological sites. This technology had at first developed in Africa, where the Homo Ergaster hominins had initiated a tradition of producing flaked stone hand axes with extremely sharp edges around the entire periphery of the stone object. Hand axes and cleavers are part of the Acheulian tradition as a whole, which lasted for nearly a million years in Africa. Owing to the fact that many such hand axes were, much later, also found at St Acheul, a suburb of the town of Amiens in France, all sites where they are now found are generally called Acheulian sites. One site that provides us with particularly strong and comprehensive evidence of the use of Acheulian technology during all the eras of the Palaeolithic Age in south Asia – Lower, Middle and Upper – between 1.5 million and 125,000 years ago, is that of Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu in south India. The first of the Acheulian style hand axes were discovered there in the early 1860s by Robert Bruce Foote (1834–1912), the father of Indian prehistory. After arriving in India in 1858, Foote spent his whole life working as a geologist and archaeologist, discovering a vast variety of hand axes in different localities in south India. His hand axe assemblage is generally known as the Madrasian Culture, owing to the proximity of the Attirampakkam region to Madras (now Chennai). Continuous archaeological research at Attirampakkam since Foote’s time, along with the use of the latest scientific excavating and dating techniques during the last two decades, has now convinced the world’s most eminent archaeologists that, even with their small brains and simplest of tools, the earliest of the African Homo Erectus hominins overcame formidable barriers and adapted to the ecological settings of south Asia in remarkable ways. The research at Attirampakkam has revolutionised our under standing of the prehistory of this entire region, as explained in Excerpt 2.2below.

The evidence of tools and fossils suggests clearly, however, that the Palaeolithic people remained essentially hunter-gatherers throughout that long period. They hunted and scavenged, collecting berries, roots and fruits of all kinds that grew in the wild. Mostly they lived in nomadic fashion in open spaces, but also used caves for shelter and protection. There is, however, one remote piece of evidence that may help us to reconstruct a picture of their social life in the Upper Palaeolithic Age. This consists of a few of the earliest cave paintings at Bhimbetka, on the bank of the River Narmada in central India, depicting scenes of hunting and fertility symbols (Thapar 2002: 74; Jha 2004: 26). Otherwise, there is nothing except fossils, pebble tools and hand axes.

The Mesolithic era

The transition from the Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic era witnessed the emer- gence of a new type of stone tool known as the microlith. Although small in size, this was a superior implement. A typical microlith kit would consist of tiny