The present paper aims to conduct a comparative investigation of rock art sites, specifically Isk... more The present paper aims to conduct a comparative investigation of rock art sites, specifically Isko in the Barkagaon block of the Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. This research is being conducted to document this site by interpretive and ethnoarchaeological analysis to understand this region's human cultural history better. The site gets its attention due to the tribal population's emotional and cultural connection with rock art. As a result, many works are done exclusively from an ethnoarchaeological point of view rather than from an interpretative analysis of the symbols, patterns, pictographs, petroglyphs, and so on found on the site. Therefore, this research aims to shed light on the interpretative approach with a glimpse of the prehistoric people's cognitive minds on their surrounding environment. Also, the authors tried to describe this rock art site's structural position and the importance of its connection with the surrounding villagers of the Isko rock art site.
Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the a... more Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the arts, not as an activity dissociated from life but as a response to it. It aims to foster an active dialogue amongst the scholars of various disciplines. The Journal will provide a forum for scholarly articles, research notes and book reviews of the highest quality from cultures around the world and will cover the following field of disciplines:
Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the a... more Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the arts, not as an activity dissociated from life but as a response to it. It aims to foster an active dialogue amongst the scholars of various disciplines. The Journal will provide a forum for scholarly articles, research notes and book reviews of the highest quality from cultures around the world and will cover the following field of disciplines:
Recently late Acheulian artifacts consisting of hand axes, choppers, pointed picks, scrapers made... more Recently late Acheulian artifacts consisting of hand axes, choppers, pointed picks, scrapers made on quartzite and quartzitic sandstone have been discovered in ferricritised alluvial fills between Gopiballavur and Rameswaram temple covering a stretch of about 30km of the lower Subarnarekha river. Artifacts occur in stratified context, about 8 to 10 km below the fill surface and about 5km south of the present bank of the river. Stratigraphically, the basal bedrock is a strong ferricritised boundary cobbly bed (FBB) without any artifact. The FBB is unconformably overlaid by brownish-grey mottled clay (BGMC) with lenses of ironstone bands, deposited in the fluvial-lacustral environment. The BGMC is conformably covered by the cobbly pebbly moderately ferricrised gravel with late Acheulian artifacts. The weathered nature of artifact bearing gravel, its present location, about 5km away from the modern channel indicates the relict nature of the fluvial fill. On the other hand, the site near Rameswaram temple with flake artifacts in Palaeo-gravel bar capped by ferricritised alluvial fill (10m thick) 20 m above the present channel of the Subarnarekha probably suggest that late Acheulian activity in palaeo-Subarnarekha is most likely to be the middle Pleistocene age.
CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, Sep 21, 2022
Foote was a geologist by profession and employed in the Geological Survey of India established by... more Foote was a geologist by profession and employed in the Geological Survey of India established by colonial government in 1851. While Ball was surveying as geologists of Eastern India, Bruce Foote was entrusted with surveys in South India covering parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Ball's antiquarian pursuits were sporadic and casual and do not seem to have grown out of any larger goals of cultural reconstruction. So, his writings themselves were matter-of-fact reporting of the actual finds, bereft of any meaningful interpretations. He probably also lacked full knowledge of the happenings taking place in Europe. Foote's work was free from these deficiencies. There was a real sense of purpose, and this is reflected in the nature of his field discoveries, the methods he adopted and the interpretations he arrived at. Once, R.D. Oldham called Foote, one of the earliest discoverers and later a most enthusiastic investigator of relics of ancient man in southern India. Thus, his enthusiasm for the subjects and his wide
Studies of Palaeolithic evidences from India are numerous but most of these are based on surface ... more Studies of Palaeolithic evidences from India are numerous but most of these are based on surface collection. The rise and development of studies on Prehistoric archaeology in India can be viewed as having passed through three stages-Formative, Descriptive and Analytical. The Formative stage sees the exploration of virgin forests and hills leading to the discovery of stray antiquities from these regions. Since these discoveries were made immediately after C.J. Thomsen's discovery and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in the West, these antiquities were taken to be pieces of evidence of the presence of Prehistoric man in India and the extent of their expansion. It is shown that Indian Archaeology to date remains a more or less descriptive approach and one has to still wait for a detailed Analytical phase to develop. Yet one cannot deny based on archaeological evidences that India not only acted as the corridor of human migration to Southeast Asia but also had intensive human occupation at a time much before any other places in the Old World. So, in this article, we will do this by taking a review of the major stages in the development of prehistoric studies in India. We will then come to the even more significant aspect of their relevance, particularly in view of the detailed study that has resurfaced in recent years. Present time, prehistoric researchers in India have mostly concentrated on the multidisciplinary study of geo-archaeological and geo-morphological contexts within which the different tools were occurred and try to reconstruct the post-depositional features in which the tool survived.
The article is a study of microlithic tools reported from prehistoric sites of the Kharla river v... more The article is a study of microlithic tools reported from prehistoric sites of the Kharla river valley under Sambalpur d istrict, Kuchinda subdivision, western Odisha. The Kharla river basin developed within Precambrian and Proterozoic rocks have preserved prehistoric sites-mainly microlithic in thin (<10 m) colluvio-alluvial deposits of late Quaternary age. Flake tools/middle palaeolithic artifacts have been discovered in ferricretized cobbly pebbly gravel of the early late Pleistocene age. Geomorphic and palaeo-pedological features indicate a humid climate during the early Pleistocene and early Holocene. The climate was distinctly dry during the later late Pleistocene. Easy availability of raw materials like quartzite, chert, chalcedony etc. and availability of water in plunge pools of waterfalls, even in the dry period, have attracted prehistoric hunter-gatherers almost throughout the Late Quaternary.
The Romance of the discovery of Indian's Prehistoric Past, 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or m... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Preliminary geoarchaeological study of famous prehistoric site of Susunia, in the Bankura distric... more Preliminary geoarchaeological study of famous prehistoric site of Susunia, in the Bankura district of West Bengal, was carried out in the month of September in 2014. Late palaeolithic artefacts along with a few vertebrate fossils were found in colluvio-alluvial deposits of rivers Gandheswari and Dhankora, tributaries of river Darakeswar. Presence of pedogenic calcrete nodules in the surficial deposits suggest relatively dry climate prevailed during the Late Pleistocene in the present subhumid parts of West Bengal.
The present paper aims to conduct a comparative investigation of rock art sites, specifically Isk... more The present paper aims to conduct a comparative investigation of rock art sites, specifically Isko in the Barkagaon block of the Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. This research is being conducted to document this site by interpretive and ethnoarchaeological analysis to understand this region's human cultural history better. The site gets its attention due to the tribal population's emotional and cultural connection with rock art. As a result, many works are done exclusively from an ethnoarchaeological point of view rather than from an interpretative analysis of the symbols, patterns, pictographs, petroglyphs, and so on found on the site. Therefore, this research aims to shed light on the interpretative approach with a glimpse of the prehistoric people's cognitive minds on their surrounding environment. Also, the authors tried to describe this rock art site's structural position and the importance of its connection with the surrounding villagers of the Isko rock art site.
Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the a... more Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the arts, not as an activity dissociated from life but as a response to it. It aims to foster an active dialogue amongst the scholars of various disciplines. The Journal will provide a forum for scholarly articles, research notes and book reviews of the highest quality from cultures around the world and will cover the following field of disciplines:
Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the a... more Kalākalpa the biannual journal of the IGNCA addresses itself to a holistic understanding of the arts, not as an activity dissociated from life but as a response to it. It aims to foster an active dialogue amongst the scholars of various disciplines. The Journal will provide a forum for scholarly articles, research notes and book reviews of the highest quality from cultures around the world and will cover the following field of disciplines:
Recently late Acheulian artifacts consisting of hand axes, choppers, pointed picks, scrapers made... more Recently late Acheulian artifacts consisting of hand axes, choppers, pointed picks, scrapers made on quartzite and quartzitic sandstone have been discovered in ferricritised alluvial fills between Gopiballavur and Rameswaram temple covering a stretch of about 30km of the lower Subarnarekha river. Artifacts occur in stratified context, about 8 to 10 km below the fill surface and about 5km south of the present bank of the river. Stratigraphically, the basal bedrock is a strong ferricritised boundary cobbly bed (FBB) without any artifact. The FBB is unconformably overlaid by brownish-grey mottled clay (BGMC) with lenses of ironstone bands, deposited in the fluvial-lacustral environment. The BGMC is conformably covered by the cobbly pebbly moderately ferricrised gravel with late Acheulian artifacts. The weathered nature of artifact bearing gravel, its present location, about 5km away from the modern channel indicates the relict nature of the fluvial fill. On the other hand, the site near Rameswaram temple with flake artifacts in Palaeo-gravel bar capped by ferricritised alluvial fill (10m thick) 20 m above the present channel of the Subarnarekha probably suggest that late Acheulian activity in palaeo-Subarnarekha is most likely to be the middle Pleistocene age.
CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, Sep 21, 2022
Foote was a geologist by profession and employed in the Geological Survey of India established by... more Foote was a geologist by profession and employed in the Geological Survey of India established by colonial government in 1851. While Ball was surveying as geologists of Eastern India, Bruce Foote was entrusted with surveys in South India covering parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Ball's antiquarian pursuits were sporadic and casual and do not seem to have grown out of any larger goals of cultural reconstruction. So, his writings themselves were matter-of-fact reporting of the actual finds, bereft of any meaningful interpretations. He probably also lacked full knowledge of the happenings taking place in Europe. Foote's work was free from these deficiencies. There was a real sense of purpose, and this is reflected in the nature of his field discoveries, the methods he adopted and the interpretations he arrived at. Once, R.D. Oldham called Foote, one of the earliest discoverers and later a most enthusiastic investigator of relics of ancient man in southern India. Thus, his enthusiasm for the subjects and his wide
Studies of Palaeolithic evidences from India are numerous but most of these are based on surface ... more Studies of Palaeolithic evidences from India are numerous but most of these are based on surface collection. The rise and development of studies on Prehistoric archaeology in India can be viewed as having passed through three stages-Formative, Descriptive and Analytical. The Formative stage sees the exploration of virgin forests and hills leading to the discovery of stray antiquities from these regions. Since these discoveries were made immediately after C.J. Thomsen's discovery and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in the West, these antiquities were taken to be pieces of evidence of the presence of Prehistoric man in India and the extent of their expansion. It is shown that Indian Archaeology to date remains a more or less descriptive approach and one has to still wait for a detailed Analytical phase to develop. Yet one cannot deny based on archaeological evidences that India not only acted as the corridor of human migration to Southeast Asia but also had intensive human occupation at a time much before any other places in the Old World. So, in this article, we will do this by taking a review of the major stages in the development of prehistoric studies in India. We will then come to the even more significant aspect of their relevance, particularly in view of the detailed study that has resurfaced in recent years. Present time, prehistoric researchers in India have mostly concentrated on the multidisciplinary study of geo-archaeological and geo-morphological contexts within which the different tools were occurred and try to reconstruct the post-depositional features in which the tool survived.
The article is a study of microlithic tools reported from prehistoric sites of the Kharla river v... more The article is a study of microlithic tools reported from prehistoric sites of the Kharla river valley under Sambalpur d istrict, Kuchinda subdivision, western Odisha. The Kharla river basin developed within Precambrian and Proterozoic rocks have preserved prehistoric sites-mainly microlithic in thin (<10 m) colluvio-alluvial deposits of late Quaternary age. Flake tools/middle palaeolithic artifacts have been discovered in ferricretized cobbly pebbly gravel of the early late Pleistocene age. Geomorphic and palaeo-pedological features indicate a humid climate during the early Pleistocene and early Holocene. The climate was distinctly dry during the later late Pleistocene. Easy availability of raw materials like quartzite, chert, chalcedony etc. and availability of water in plunge pools of waterfalls, even in the dry period, have attracted prehistoric hunter-gatherers almost throughout the Late Quaternary.
The Romance of the discovery of Indian's Prehistoric Past, 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or m... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Preliminary geoarchaeological study of famous prehistoric site of Susunia, in the Bankura distric... more Preliminary geoarchaeological study of famous prehistoric site of Susunia, in the Bankura district of West Bengal, was carried out in the month of September in 2014. Late palaeolithic artefacts along with a few vertebrate fossils were found in colluvio-alluvial deposits of rivers Gandheswari and Dhankora, tributaries of river Darakeswar. Presence of pedogenic calcrete nodules in the surficial deposits suggest relatively dry climate prevailed during the Late Pleistocene in the present subhumid parts of West Bengal.
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