9 Man in India: An Archaeological Perspective

D. K. Bhattacharya

Table of contents:

1.  Introduction

2.  Appearance of genus Homo

3.  Homo sapiens

4.  Prehistoric World

5.  Prehistoric India

5.1 Northern India

5.2 Western India

5.3 Southern India

Conclusion

Learning Objectives

• To trace the first appearance of man
• To know about the developmental changes that took place giving rise to the modern day species
• To know about its appearance in the world
• To know about its appearance in India

1.    Introduction

Kennedy (2000) in one of his publications discusses the issue of palaeontology and human evolution with the interesting sub-heading: Was Adam an only child? This summarises several in-built problems of our manner of reasoning in the understanding of human evolution. Charles Darwin‟s On the Origin of Species (1859) laid down the foundation of a new era. Fossil hunting became an all consuming activity for those scientists who were busy trying to construct a „human evolution tree‟ from this time onwards. But the so-called “missing link” seems to have eluded us all these years. Theory of organic evolution was also given a substantive support by geneticists in the beginning of the next century. However, by 1972 Eldredge and Stephen Gould created a shock in the world of Palaeontology by heavily criticising Darwinian gradualism and suggested an alternate theory of organic evolution. This was termed Punctuated Equilibrium. It was suggested in this alternate theory that a genetic combination which strikes equilibrium in adaptational success need not undergo any change for a long time. That is, there is no gradual change in the organic world. It is only at the threshold of the environmental change that a sudden change occurs in the manner of allopatric speciation. What is more important is that there is a long period of stasis experienced by every organic being. It cannot be denied that during this long period genetic recombination environmental barriers, or even group dynamics would create wide variety of morphological features. Yet one need not consider these individuals within an „ancestor-descendent‟ format. Consequently, much of the arguments used in the construction of human evolution tree become a suspect. Thus, it will appear that one cannot question the legitimacy of Kennedy‟s question: was Adam an only child?

2. Appearance of genus Homo

Around 2.2 Ma, in the savannah region of East Africa a new descendent of the diverse mosaic of pre-existing hominids appeared. This member was admitted to our genus, i.e. Homo. The interesting feature of this hominid kind is the direct evidence of his tool-making ability.

Besides showing a substantially increased skull volume (800-1100 cc), this group started fabricating an interesting array of „heavy duty‟ tools by skilfully breaking pebble nodules. This earliest member of genus Homo is identified with varying degree of morphological characters. On the basis of this variation several species were identified. These are Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and Sinanthropus pekinensis. This is the first time we find the early ancestors of man spreading all over the Old World. The ancestor of the first member of our genus was believed to be Homo habilis because of its occurring at a slightly earlier date and also because of certain circumstantial evidences. That is to say, the agreed chain of development was an over simplistic sequence as follows: Sahelenthropus →Australopithecus →Homo habilis. Homo erectus was accepted as having evolved from Homo habilis. What kind of selective advantage or mutation and recombination of genetic base brought about this progressive change will probably never be understood completely.

Recently a Homo habilis skull was found just east of Lake Turkana in Kenya. It was dated 1.44 Ma (Spoor et. al: 2007). Earlier it was thought that this species died after Homo erectus evolved around 1.8 Ma. Now with this new discovery it has to be accepted that habilis and erectus survived parallel for nearly half a million years and hence they are no linearly progressive ancestral and evolved or descendent forms but mere contemporaneous forms with a common ancestor which is still to be discovered. In this light, the discovery of a skeleton from South Africa last year by Prof. Lee Berger seems to be a possible candidate for this common ancestor. It is dated 1.98Ma and is named Australopithecus sediba.

3.  Homo sapiens

Finally one needs to address the question of erectus evolving into early sapiens and then to full blown Homo sapien sapien or Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens (AMHS). As far as hard evidences go, there are a reasonably good number of fossils known from Africa, Europe and Asia which demonstrate this process of sapienization stretched over a period of one and half million years. The fossil evidence of India from Hathnora in Madhya Pradesh also shows a typical early sapien variety. If one considers these evidences from different regions, one might be inclined to prescribe to the so-called „Multi regional‟ theory for human origin. That is, Homo erectus evolved in one place, either in Africa or Asia, and then migrated to the rest of the world. In each of these continents the erectus subsequently evolved into AMHS in a parallel manner. This, in other words, means that living human populations of the world did not have any common ancestor till about 1 Ma back. This enables one to explain such local characteristics as shovel shaped incisors for Mongoloid races, large skull for the Caucasoid, and facial prognathism for the Negroid. Unfortunately such a theory stinks of being the mother of all racism. It will not be surprising if such a view is hijacked for political purpose like what history has witnessed during the Nazi regime. Furthermore, it is hard to accept that genetically the same species can evolve separately in different places under different environmental conditions. Recently an alternate model has been suggested on the basis of molecular biology which suggests that all living human populations of the world have a common ancestor at around only 50,000 years ago. The first point in which this theory appears completely free of racism is that we are all Homo sapien sapien with one line of descent which is much smaller in duration. The second point in which this theory appears acceptable is that it proves that living human populations of the world are not separately evolved, from an ancestral stock of Homo erectus. Unfortunately hard evidences supporting such a genesis still alludes us.

Lest we deviate from the punctuational model mentioned earlier, we must mention that the development of Neanderthals in Europe can certainly be taken as an allopatric speciation from a long stasis witnessed in what is known as Homo heidelbergensis. Besides this, there are some more evidences which have come to light in the recent years that can be best explained by punctuational model.

4. Prehistoric World

Prehistoric data from the Pleistocene period is widespread in almost all over the country, including the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Sri Lanka. In some places like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka evidences of heavy occupation over a long period of time is also conspicuous. The richness of archaeological material collected has enabled us to identify some distinct litho-cultured traditions as well. Unfortunately most of these studies follow nomenclature and categories which have been developed in Western Europe. Consequently, we still try to identify such basic groups as Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in India although there is no strict definitional discriminant used for doing so. In fact it has been well demonstrated in South East Asia that such categories of chrono-cultural divisions are not applicable in many parts. Further, if these are real categories, one would naturally expect areas of transformation of one into another. In Lower Palaeolithic period, two techno-complexes are identified. These are the pebble chopper of Mode I group and the other is the hand axe cleaver group identified as the Mode II tradition. The cultural nomenclature for Mode I is Oldowan and that of Mode II is Acheulian. The adoption of European terms prevents us from delineating such adaptation strategies which are specific to the various ecological zones of India. One example of such a mindset is our inability to accept that chopper/chopping or Mode I industry is not necessarily ancestral to biface or Acheulian tradition (Mode II). I find it especially surprising because even in Europe chopper/chopping industry was accepted as the main feature of Lower Palaeolithic in Markkleeberg (Grahamann: 1955) in Germany and Vertesszollos in Hungary (Vertes: 1956). I feel these sites or discussions of them being published in non-English language could not possibly make any impact on Indian scholars.

The other problem that has been clouding a better understanding of our Pleistocene culture has been the absence of absolute dates for most of our important findings. It is needless to emphasise here that Pleistocene Period, which ranges from 2.8 Ma-10 Ka, is the duration within which habilis, erectus and sapiens occur. Absence of absolute dates for the cultures within this period can make most of our interpretations entirely tentative. Our Pleistocene chronometer still continues to work on the geo-climatic arguments laid down by the Yale-Cambridge expedition (de Terra and Patterson: 1939).

5. Prehistoric India

India is a country with diverse ecologies and there is no reason to believe that such an ecological diversity was not there during Pleistocene Period. Even the monsoonic regime is also known to have existed from as early as Miocene Period (20 Ma). Consequently a reconstruction of Palaeological features for each of the zones of India should help us understand the cultural metamorphosis of Pleistocene Period. Unfortunately very little work backed up with robust scientific data towards this end has been done. The consequence of the spread of ash from the last Toba eruption around 74 Ka has also not been adequately investigated.

5.1 Northern India

The weakness of these aspects in prehistoric research in India has prevented the understanding of a cogent picture of early hominid dispersal in this sub-continent. The immensely rich archaeological data, despite this in-built weakness, does provide us with broad indications. These should be seriously pursued in future research. Finally there has been yet another weak point in our understanding of Palaeolithic Culture. This has been a serious hindrance in understanding several such issues as activity area, core to flake proportion, working floor and cultural transformation, through time. This weak point refers to the acute paucity of rich primary sites from large areas of this country. The primary sites excavated so far are Paisra in Bihar, Chirki-on-Pravara in Maharashtra, Bhimbetka and Adamgarh in Madhya Pradesh and Hunsgi in Karnataka. Palaeontological data of animals hunted are very poorly represented in almost all these digs. Furthermore, baring a few (like Bhimbetka), most of these sites show a rich Lower Palaeolithic stage directly leading to microliths belonging to Holocene Period. It needs no over emphasising that understanding Palaeolithic metamorphosis occurring through Pleistocene epoch happens to be the sole clue left to us to trace early hominid dispersal. This is mainly because of the near absence of hard evidence from Indian Pleistocene deposits. Thus, even the primary sites provide only limited help.

It would be important at this point to formulate some broad archaeological equivalences which are usually associated with various stages of hominid evolution. These equivalences are the generally held belief based on what has been observed at the classical site of Olduvai Gorge and may not have universal attestation. Simple pebble choppers and chopping tools with minimum terminal flaking (Mode I) are taken as mankind‟s first attempt at tool making and may be logically taken as the workmanship of Homo habilis. Some believe that chopping tool might have appeared slightly later in date.

From 1.8 Ma a new set of tool types develop. These constitute such bifacial types as handaxes, cleavers and some specific flake tools (Mode II). Initially, these tools are bulky and are made entirely by stone hammer technique and basically using only primary scars. This initial phase is identified as early Acheulian and is known to occur during Lower Pleistocene Period. From around 500 Ka there seems to occur an insitu change of technique and hence also a substantial refinement of types. The emergence of soft hammer technique for trimming cores appears. Along with this, Levalloisian technique for the preparation of suitable flakes marks this phase. This has been identified as Upper Acheulian. This phase is believed to occur during 200 Ka to 100 Ka.

From around 100 Ka, these bifacial tool types more or less disappear and a large variety of flake tools begin to dominate the scene (Mode III). This is designated as Middle Palaeolithic in Europe and its maker is taken to be the Neanderthals. Thus, the reign of Homo erectus in Africa and Asia is taken to be occurring during 1.8 Ma to 0.1 Ma. Subsequently, Neanderthals in some regions and early sapiens in other regions spread out in the Old World. From 40 Ka the technique of blade manufacture is witnessed (Mode IV). Along with various blade tools, bone tools and decorated bones and antlers characterise this period. This is called Upper Palaeolithic Period and this continues till 10 Ka. The associated hominid form during this culture is identified as Homo sapien sapien or AMHS.

The entire period of early hominid colonisation in Africa from Sahelenthropus to Australopithecus goes unregistered in India. Yet a much older group of forms which show enough changes in their dental morphology to be included in the branch of common stock is known from the Siwaliks in North West India. These groups are known to have lived here from as early as possibly 18 Ma. These are named Ramapithecus, Sivapithecus, Gigantopithecus etc., or generally Miocene apes. What is important is that hard evidences known till today indicate a fairly good concentration of colonies of these apes in the north western region of India who are considered to be in the threshold of the branch which evolves into Australopithecus and then into earliest member of the genus Homo. Unfortunately the line of hard evidence stops here. Interestingly, in the Siwalik extension in Pakistan in the regions of Riwat and Pabbi Hills, few archaic tools have been recorded from a date range of 2.2 Ma to 1.4 Ma (Dennell: 2007). This leaves no doubt that a tool-making hominid group was present in this region at almost the same time as in the Olduvai Gorge. Consequently, one needs to entertain the possibility of the presence of a Homo habilis or Asiatic collateral of the same kind in the western gateway of India.

Thus it will appear that either the cradle of mankind needs to be shifted to South Asia or one has to entertain a possibility of habilis from Africa having spread out into South Asia. Some of the rather early date of hominid fossils from China will further indicate that this eastward migration did not stop at South Asia alone. The consolidation of this group further north may be indicated by the evidence from Georgia. Here at a site called Dmanissi a pre-Oldowan (de Lumley et. al: 2005) industry is claimed in association with an archaic erectus form dating 1.81 Ma. Some authorities (Chauhan: 2007) believe that these early hominid groups did not spread into India. Instead they spread into regions which were in the peripheral zone like northern Pakistan, Tadjikistan and the Arabian Peninsula. Now, of course, Georgia also needs to be added to this list.

The development of early Acheulian from within the Oldowan tradition is well demonstrated in East Africa. Unlike this, the ancestry of Acheulian or Mode II tradition in India does not seem to be so well demonstrated. In northern region Dina and Jalalpur in northern Pakistan (Rendell and Dennell: 1985 and Dennell: 2004) has yielded early Acheulian implements from 700 Ka-400 Ka. In Nepal Gudrun Corvinus (1996) discovered similarly old early Acheulian tools from Satpati Hills within a context of folded Upper Siwalik Boulder conglomerate. Corvinus, using associated geomorphologic observations argued that they were recently exposed or eroded out from early Middle Pleistocene or terminal early Pleistocene deposits.

5.2 Western India

In western India, Didwana represents an excavated site of Palaeolithic succession. A locality in this cluster named Signi Talav exposed an early Acheulian assemblage which is ascribed to > 800 Ka. Umrethi in Gujarat has a few early Acheulian tools in miliolite context and these have been dated to > 190 Ka. As one proceeds towards the Central Vindhyan ranges and then further south towards the Deccan Plateau, Acheulian evidences start becoming more and more frequent. However, such primary sites as Adamgarh and Bhimbetka seem to represent a more advanced Acheulian in their typological features. Bori and Morgaon are two open air sites in Maharashtra (Mishra: 1955) of which Bori seems to have a date of >660 Ka and hence should be considered as early Acheulian. Another open air site from Maharashtra which has been horizontally excavated is Chirki-on-Pravara. A possible date of Ca 400 Ka is attributed to this occupation.

5.3 Southern India

In the Hunsgi-Baichbal valley in Karnataka as many as 200 Acheulian occurrences have been reported (Paddayya: 1982). The site of Isampur in the Hunsgi Valley has yielded a date of 1.27 Ma for a rich Acheulian layer (Paddayya et.al: 2002).

In the eastern sector Singbhum in Jharkhand (Ghosh: 1970) and Mayurbhunj group of sites in Odissa (Bose and Sen: 1949) though still undated represents the evidence of prolific hominid occupation. The Giddalur region in Andhra Pradesh, likewise, shows one of the largest evidence of Acheulian occupation (Soundarajan: 1952). These evidences, generally speaking, do not show specifically early Acheulian features but one can find early Acheulian techniques occurring along with upper-Acheulian features in almost all these sites. Further south along the eastern coast occurs the famous Acheulian site of Attirampakkam in northern Tamil Nadu. Pappu et.al (2011) has recently published a date of 1.5 Ma for the cultural period.

Conclusion

Thus the presence of an early hominid for almost all the regions of India seems indicated from these archaeological sites. Further south and beyond the river Cauvery, Tamil Nadu does not show any other Palaeolithic occurrence. In Sri Lanka, as well, there seems to be no strong presence of Palaeolithic population visible. The Ratnapura formation does show some quartz pebbles and flakes but even these cannot be ascribed to an early date. The coastal alluvial gravels from Iranamadu formation of the Ratnapura region has thermoluminescence date of 74 Ka.

The above rapid survey of archaeological data available from India and its neighborhood in south Asia will indicate some important points. One of the most prominent among these is the absence or rarity of Acheulian beyond 93º E. This, however, need not be translated to mean the absence of Homo erectus in this region. The entire South East Asia basically remains non-Acheulian zone yet we have the classic Pithecanthropus from here. In other words, we have to entertain the possibility of having two early hominid groups: One preferring to make hand axes and cleavers and the other who did not prefer to invest so much energy in preparing these types.

Another important feature which will be evident from the above survey is that the early hominid did not penetrate beyond 11º N in the South. At the moment we do not have any possibility of citing any reason for this. May be more detailed investigation of palaeo-environment and oceanography of the region may suggest important clues to explain this in future.

It would appear from the above that the possible manner of dispersal of early hominids to India has to be viewed in three separate waves. The first group which may have entered India anywhere between 2.5 and 2.2 Ma was a pre-erectus. The second group entered around 1.5 Ma to 600,000 years ago. These groups can be identified as Homo erectus which may have evolved in either Africa or elsewhere in Asia.

If we entertain the possibility of Asia being the cradle of Homo erectus evolution, then an area somewhere between Caspian Sea and Jordan would appear to be the region of its birth. The absolute date of 1.4 Ma for Acheulians at Ubeidya in Israel (Bar Yossef and Goren-Inbar: 1993), 1.8 Ma for Dmanissi (de Lumley et. al: 2005) in Georgia and 1.2 Ma for Isampur in Karnataka and 1.5 Ma for Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu will certainly support this possibility most strongly. Otherwise, one has to accept that early erectus evolved in Africa and then rapidly spread far and wide through South Asia, Georgia, Indonesia and China.

The issue of the third wave of Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens (AMHS) is proposed mainly on the basis of eastward migration of the Haplotype M, which is one of the lineages of the Haplogroup L3 of mitochondrial DNA. Since mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the female line, the theory is also nicknamed the „African Eve Theory‟. According to this theory, AMHS evolved in North East Africa, one branch of which migrated through the horn of Africa and Saudi Arabia to China and India. Thus India acted as the main corridor to populate South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The other branch moved to Europe through Senai. This theory further proposes that this phenomenon of dispersal occurred 50,000 years ago. All the earlier inhabitants in these countries were totally replaced by this variety of modern man: projections such about the dispersal of man in India appear difficult to substantiate with hard evidence because of near absence of hominid fossils from India.

The only evidence of Pleistocene man known till date from India is a partial calvarium or skull cap described from the Surajkund basal conglomerate of Narmada in Sehore district. There have been several estimates of its date. Biswas (1997) ascribes this to a Middle Pleistocene date on the basis of the association of the mammalian fauna of Stagodon namadicus and Sus namadicus from the same bed. Sonakia (2007) who had discovered this find claims this to be, “Slightly younger than 0.76 Ma”. This indeed is rather an early date for an individual whose cranial capacity is estimated to range between 1200 and 1400 cc (de Lumley and Sonakia: 1985).

It is possible that Acheulians, at least, in some regions of India, may have continued without much change till possibly as late as 40-50 thousand years from today. It is, therefore, an inordinately long period from 1.5 Ma to 0.06 Ma for early erectus to remain unchanged. Even if these changes would have taken him towards the path of sapienization, we have no other fossil evidence except the one from Hathnora to fall back upon. Thus it will appear that the Homo erectus in South Asia flourished both through time and space. In Europe, this takes up a very specialised body structure during the last glaciations. Elsewhere it developed a generalised gracile form during this advanced stage. In this regard, the evidence from Herto Bouri (White et. al: 2003) in the middle Awash region of Ethiopia can be cited as an absolute evidence of this progression. This important evidence is dated 160,000 years. At last two adult skulls associated with both bifaces and advanced flake tool types are described. The skulls belong to a type which is more easily identifiable as early sapien rather than erectus. Late Acheulians in South Asia may have had a comparable hominid kind, the hard evidence of which still alludes us.

Continuing with the argument of the third wave which brought the AMHS into South Asia, we will proceed with the assumption that Upper Palaeolithic culture was associated with them. Hence a survey of Upper Palaeolithic culture in the absence of fossils might help us in understanding the process of AMHS dispersal in India. Trying to identify evidences of Upper Palaeolithic, we find that these are not as prolific and as rich as the culture of the preceding period.

The absolute date available for some of the important blade dominated excavated sites are as follows:

• Bhimbetka- 15, 370 years BP
• Didwana- 26, 210 years BP
• Baghor III- 19, 160 (Possehl and Rissman: 1992)

The above will imply that between approximately 30,000 years BP till about 15000 years BP there have been some changes in the cultural material, but the heavy continuation of flake tool types would indicate that these developments may as well be internal transformation. This seems more probable because we have many evidences of late Acheulian assemblages where a fair amount of blades are recorded (Bhattacharya and Singh: 1997). It will be significant to note at this juncture that because of this, many experts deny the existence of a classic Upper Palaeolithic in many parts of India. Ghosh and Chaudhary (1989) go to the extent of even suggesting an alternate term, „flake-blade element‟ for our terminal Pleistocene Culture. The areas where a true Upper Palaeolithic industry has been excavated are restricted to some regions of Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh only.

This would naturally imply that for a vast majority of the regions in India, there is no culture break demonstrable for the entire duration of Pleistocene. If we argue that in these areas an indigenously evolved form continued, we get ensnared with the theory of “Multi regionalism”- which has long been rejected as genetically improbable. Consequently we are left with no other option but to accept that Homo sapiens or AMHS arriving out of Africa must have interbred with local populations and did not entirely replace them. (This is a point which the „Out of Africa‟ model opposes).

We shall, therefore, like to suggest that a fairly sapienised Homo erectus may have interbred with the AMHS migrating out of Africa. Further, the migration may have proceeded out of the western gateway of Rajasthan along the 24º N latitude. Around Ramgarh Hills, they may have divided into two branches: one going northwards towards Kaimur Hills and the other going south towards to Andhra Pradesh through the forests of Chattisgarh. The onward migration toward South-East Asia must have proceeded simultaneously through 24º N latitude. A final point that needs to be added here is that Partha Majumdar‟s (Majumdar et.al: 2003) coastal route of AMHS migration does not seem to be supported, at least as far as the archaeological evidence go. Now the last blow to Mitochondrial Theory has come from Fuyan Cave in Hunan Province of south China. Here, a trove of 47 fossil Homo sapien sapien teeth has been found occurring around 80,000 to 120,000 years ago.

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