Pleistocene

Humans lived in South Asia during the Pleistocene Epoch. Biface handaxe and cleaver traditions may have origninated in the middle Pleistocene (Kennedy 2000: 136). The Pleistocene Epoch is part of the geologic timescale. ...

Paleolithic

The prehistory of India goes back to the Palaeolithic. In Hathnora in the Narmada valley hominid fossils from the middle Pleistozaen were found. For finds from the Belan in southern Uttar Pradesh radio carbon data have indicated an age of 18.000-17.000 BP. Also palaeolithic rock art is well-known. The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic – lit. ... The Narmada or Nerbudda is a river in central India. ... Uttar Pradesh (Hindi: उत्तर प्रदेश, Urdu: اتر پردیش), also popularly known by its abbreviation UP, is the most populous and fifth largest state in the Union of India. ... Rock art is a term in archaeology for any man-made markings made on natural stone. ...

Lower Paleolithic

At Bhimbetka humans lived from late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene. The Narmada valley, the Sivaliks and the Potwar region have exhibit many vertebrate fossil remains and paleolithic tools. Bhimbetka is a place in Madhya Pradesh where the earliest known traces of human life in India were found. ...

The beginning of the use of Acheulian and chopper-chopping tools of lower paleolithic may be dated to approx. the middle Pleistocene. (Kennedy 2000: 160) Acheulean (also spelled Acheulian) is the name of an industry of stone tools used by prehistoric hominids. ...

Middle Paleolithic

Many middle paleolithic sites were found in India.

Upper Paleolithic

Chert, jasper and quartzite were often used by humans during this period. Upper paleolithic tools were also found in Bhimbetka. Chert Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich cryptocrystalline sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. ... Jasper pebble, one inch (2. ... Quartzite Quartzite is a hard, metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. ...

Homo sapiens

Cave sites in Sri Lanka have yielded the earliest record of modern homo sapiens in South Asia. They were dated to 34,000 B.P. (Kennedy 2000: 180) Acheulian tools in Sri Lanka were dated however to approx. 70,000 B.P. Acheulean (also spelled Acheulian) is the name of an industry of stone tools used by prehistoric hominids. ...

See also

• Mesolithic in South Asia

References

• Kenneth A.R. Kennedy. 2000, God-Apes and Fossil Men: Palaeoanthropology of South Asia Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.