Prehistory and Protohistory of Eastern India- With a Detailed Account of the Neolithic Cultures in Mainland South East Asia (An Old and Rare Book)

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THE Prehistory of India and Pakistan is still in the early stages of study. So far the exploration has been conducted very unevenly and the result has mostly given us a description of tool types recovered from such searches. Barring a few exceptions, no serious attempt has been made to study the geological con- text within which the different tools were produced and to reconstruct the environmental background in which early man lived in this sub-continent. We can hardly visualise at present the changing pattern of the geography and geo- logy of this vast land mass when man evolved from early stone age to later periods of tool manufacture. The environmental reconstruction of Burkitt and Cammiade in South East India is a hypothetical proposition which needs exact correlation with geological phases. De Terra's attempt to define geological periods in the Potwar has been questioned by Prof. F. E. Zeuner, and Zeuner's own reconstruction in Gujarat lacks detail and remains to be supplemented by further analysis of the materials. In Eastern India N. K. Bose has tried to study the implementiferous beds of the Burhabalanga, but the result is still far from satisfactory. Consequently the geo-chronology in this sub-continent still remains to be established. In the present state of our knowledge only a general geographical and geological background can be given. On the other hand, the stone tools in this sub-continent have been studied mainly on the basic terminology evolved in European and African contexts. The attempt of H. L. Movius to evolve terms like, Chopper-chopping tools, Scrapers and Hand Adzes for the Eastern Asiatic tool types is hardly satisfactory. But as long as a comprehensive independent enquiry into the problem of the stone-industry of this sub-continent, based on the nature of the raw-material available here is not made, a researcher in a limited field has to make the most of the given opportunities. It is against this background that the first three chapters of this book have been written. The main idea throughout has been to provide an earlier background to the main part of the thesis which deals with the neolithic problem in Eastern India and South East Asia.