Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology in the Kortallayar Basin, South India.

Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology in the Kortallayar Basin, South India. Introduction Recent approaches towards the study of Palaeolithic stone toolassemblages in India vary greatly. Most reports on excavations orsurveys contain lists of tool types and often use types as `indexfossils' for culture-stratigraphic successions. Others emphasizetool manufacturing techniques (Corvinus 1983; Jayswal 1978), and may putforward observations on hominid hominidAny member of the zoological family Hominidae (order Primates), which consists of the great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos) as well as human beings. behaviour in their regional settings(Allchin et al. 1978; Misra 1989; Murty 1981; Paddayya 1982; Pappu 1997;Sharma & Clark 1983). Artefacts are also examined in terms ofattributes which may inform on natural formation processes (Petraglia1995; Pappu 1999: 135). This paper examines stone tool technology fromthe surface collection of artefacts from Middle Palaeolithic sites inthe Kortallayar basin, South India, with emphasis on the lithicreduction sequence. This is one of the few regions in India This is a list of unofficial, or quasi-official regions of India. Some are geographic regions, others ethnic, linguistic, dialect, or cultural regions, and some correspond to historic countries, states or provinces. For ecological regions, see Ecoregions of India. where siteformation processes have been studied, to identify well-preserved Lowerand Middle Palaeolithic sites (Pappu 1996; 1997; 1999) and to makeobservations on hominid behaviour. This paper also places assemblagesfrom the study region within the context of the relatively little knownIndian Middle Palaeolithic, with implications for further studies ofvaried hominid behaviour patterns. The region The study region (FIGURE 1) in the Kortallayar Basin, Tiruvallurdistrict, Tamil Nadu, South India comprises an area of 200 sq. km. UpperGondwana formations (the Allikulli hills and outliers; Muralidharan etal. 1993; Pappu 1996: 15) are the source of the raw materials in theform of quartzite quartzite,usually metamorphic rock composed of firmly cemented quartz grains. Most often it is white, light gray, yellowish, or light brown, but is sometimes colored blue, green, purple, or black by included minerals. and quartzitic sandstone pebbles and cobbles cob��ble?1?n.1. A cobblestone.2. Geology A rock fragment between 64 and 256 millimeters in diameter, especially one that has been naturally rounded.3. cobbles See cob coal.tr. andquartz nodules, which were redistributed over the region via colluvial,sheet and stream flood processes (FIGURE 2). A regional survey(1991-1995) documented 22 localities with Lower and Middle Palaeolithicartefacts. Middle Palaeolithic sites have varied artefact See artifact. densitiesranging from 3-4 to 28 artefacts/sq.m, covering areas of 50 sq. m toaround 1 sq. km. Sites occur in rock-shelters in the Allikulli hills; onhill slopes; in open-air contexts in low-to-medium-energy episodic sheetwash deposits; and erode out of ferricretes and ferricritized gravels(Pappu 1999: 132). Most localities have stratified stratified/strat��i��fied/ (strat��i-fid) formed or arranged in layers. strat��i��fiedadj.Arranged in the form of layers or strata. Lower to MiddlePalaeolithic horizons (FIGURE 2), testifying to the intense andcontinuous occupation of this region during the Pleistocene. [Figures 1-2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Middle Palaeolithic assemblages An understanding of the complete lithic reduction sequence, asopposed to a listing of tool types, was necessary to study hominidbehaviour patterns during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Attributeschosen included general ones applicable for all tool types (such as rawmaterial, blank form, patina, cortex percentage and position, dorsalflake scar patterns, dimensions, etc.) and those specific to certainartefact types (such as distinct measurements for bifaces, cores, etc.).Artefacts were divided into cores, debitage The term debitage refers to the totality of waste material produced during lithic reduction and the production of chipped stone tools. This assemblage includes, but is not limited to, different kinds of lithic flakes, shatter, and production errors and rejects. and finished tools. A fewgeneral types were chosen, acknowledging the fact that there isconsiderable gradation gradation:see ablaut. between types owing to technological ornon-functional causes. A brief description of these assemblages isfollowed by a discussion and implications for hominid behaviour. Codesfor the names of sites are listed in TABLE 1. [TABULAR DATA 1 NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII ASCIIor American Standard Code for Information Interchange,a set of codes used to represent letters, numbers, a few symbols, and control characters. Originally designed for teletype operations, it has found wide application in computers. ] Raw material The principal raw material comprised quartzite, followed byquartzitic sandstone, and quartz (TABLE 2). These were derived from theweathering and reworking of the Upper Gondwana Satyavedu andSriperumbudur formations of the Allikulli hills, and their outliers. Nosite is more than 4 km from raw material sources. [TABULAR DATA 2 NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Blank types Tools made on cobbles and pebbles are seen at all sites but form animportant percentage at sites located on hillslopes, where they wouldhave been easily accessible. Artefact types on these blanks includecore-scrapers, cores grading into bifaces or chopping tools, bifaces,and chopping tools. Natural spalls (termed here thermal fracture spalls)resulting from prolonged weathering of cobbles and boulders wereutilized to a greater extent in areas where the bedrock was easilyexposed; and required only minimal modification to be used as tools.They were preferred for the manufacture of `corescrapers' or wereirregularly retouched and are classified as `pieces with retouch'.The bulk of tools are on flakes. These include prepared core flakeswhich are found at all sites but predominate at ATM. Artefacts may be onnon-cortical flakes, or on cortical flakes (28-33%); the latter wererarer in localities situated close to abundant sources of raw material.Artefacts on flake-blades and blades constitute an important componentof the total assemblage only at GUN and PLP (Presentation Level Protocol) A North American standard protocol for videotex. . Tools on broken/exhaustedcores and tools and those on debitage flakes, chunks, thermal fracturespalls/chunks predominate in areas away from raw material sources. Cores Modified cobbles/trimmed nodules representing early stages in coretrimming and reduction are found at almost all sites and predominate atsites further away from raw material sources. Cores are few in number(FIGURE 3). Levallois cores (mean dimension of 103x77x45 mm) are onfine-to-medium-grained quartzites, some being unstruck. Levallois flakesoutnumber cores at all sites. Discoidal dis��coid? also dis��coi��daladj.1. Having a flat, circular form; disk-shaped.2. Related to or having a disk.3. Botany Having disk flowers only. Used of a composite flower head. cores (mean dimension of92x80x40 mm) are also noted. Flake cores include single, opposed,multiple or 90 [degrees] platform cores. In several cases they gradeinto other tools (or possess the `potentiality' of doing so); inparticular handaxes, chopping tools and core scrapers. In two cases,flakes were detached from an older patinated flake surface whichrepresents an earlier phase of reduction. [Figure 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Debitage At most sites non-cortical flakes predominate. When present, cortexis generally less than 25 % of the total surface area, exceeding 50% atonly four sites (NEY, NAM, ARY ARY Abdul Razzaq Yaqoob (Pakistani businessman), ATM). The importance of cortex as anatural backing occurs especially in the case of unretouched, possiblyutilized, flakes where it is noted along the right and left sides. Aconsiderable proportion of flakes end in step terminations, consideredto be the result of flaws in raw material as a result of which cores onquartzite often become exhausted. Finished tools These are marked by the predominance of scrapers and core-scrapers,a continuation of the biface and chopper-chopping element associatedwith the Acheulian, and negligible percentages of other artefact types(TABLE 1, FIGURES 4 & 5). Most scrapers have only one edge (convexor straight) retouched. Core-scrapers occur on varied blank typesincluding cores, chunks/ nodules/thermal fracture spalls/older flakes,pebbles/cobbles, on flakes. At MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) The compression technique used in DVD-Audio that provides the highest audio quality. It delivers two channels at 192 kHz with 24-bit samples or six channels at 96 kHz. , GUN and ARY, there was a definitepreference for using older flakes (as indicated by the presence of twophases of patination), or thick flakes. In addition to standardized`types', debitage, irregular flakes, natural spalls, and brokencores/ tools were often irregularly irretouched and termed here `Pieceswith retouch'. Levallois points are concentrated at ARY, with nocorresponding cores being noted. Chopper-chopping tools, handaxes(elongate e��lon��gate?tr. & intr.v. e��lon��gat��ed, e��lon��gat��ing, e��lon��gatesTo make or grow longer.adj. or elongated1. Made longer; extended.2. Having more length than width; slender. ovate), and cleavers are rare; the latter are concentrated atsites further away from raw material sources. [Figures 4-5 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Discussion of Middle Palaeolithic technology and behaviouralimplications Middle Palaeolithic hominids, in this region, predominantlyexploited locally available quartzite pebbles and cobbles. However,geomorphological ge��o��mor��phol��o��gy?n.The study of the evolution and configuration of landforms.geo��mor processes and hominid exploitation through timeaffected the distribution and ease of accessibility of raw materialsources (Pappu 1997). Gravel-based deposits along the hill slopes andfoothills of the Allikullis and their outliers yielded clasts of allsizes and types, which were easily accessible throughout thePleistocene. Colluvial, sheet and stream flood process led to thereworking and size sorting of these clasts over the region (Pappu 1999:133). However, with the gradual formation of ferricretes, some of theclasts and bedrock sources were buried and inaccessible. The principalsource of raw material now included clasts, derived from periodic sheetfloods, which were smaller in size and of differing, mainly quartzite,lithology li��thol��o��gy?n.1. The gross physical character of a rock or rock formation.2. The microscopic study, description, and classification of rock. . In the case of sites located along the foothill zone and onhill slopes (PLP, GDM (Global DOS Memory) The first megabyte of memory that DOS supports. It consists of conventional memory (0-640K), the UMA (640-1,024K) and the HMA (1,024-1,088K). , PEN, MET, KRN KRN KoreanKRN Kiruna, Sweden - Kiruna (Airport Code)KRN Kernel Row Number (agriculture, corn genetics)KRN Knowledge Resource Network , SEN, NAM), artefacts are generallygreater than 80 mm in size (FIGURE 6). Sites located in sheet and streamflood deposits (ATM, MLP, ARY, GUN), exhibit a decrease in artefactsizes, which is in accordance with a decrease in the size of naturalclasts available. At ATM, a comparison of clast sizes and artefact sizesindicates that most tools [is greater than] 80 mm and all tools [isgreater than] 160 mm have undergone preliminary off-site trimming andthat raw material clasts were brought from elsewhere. In the case ofsites located close to abundant raw material sources a relativelylimited number of rock types were exploited. In the opposite situation,even coarse-grained quartzites have been used. No relationship betweenartefact types and rock types is seen, and locally available rawmaterial was predominant. [Figure 6 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Cores are few in number and never match the percentage of debitage(TABLE 1). Flake cores grade into chopping tools, pounding tools andbifaces. On comparing bifaces with cores grading into bifaces, thelatter are larger than the former, indicating some reduction in corevolume. This is important when considering the fact that bifaces werepossibly also a source of flakes (Jones 1994), and that no bifacetrimming flakes were found at these sites. At all sites the ratio ofcores versus tools or cores versus debitage is very low. The highestnumber of cores is noted at sites further away from raw materialsources. One reason for the small percentage of prepared cores could beattributed to clast size, where a smaller nodule nodule:see concretion. noduleIn geology, a rounded mineral concretion that is distinct from, and may be separated from, the formation in which it occurs. size leads to thepredominance of naturally backed pieces and lower frequency of theLevallois technique (Fish 1981: 379). Important to note is the existenceof a possible gradation between Levallois and discoidal coresrepresentative of stages in the reduction of Levallois cores. This isseen in West Asia (Bar-Yosef & Meignen 1992; Rolland 1988: 163) atBir Tarfawi (Close & Wendorf 1993) and in the Son valley sites(Sharma & Clark 1983). Naturally backed cortical retouched/ unretouched `knives' aremost frequent at GUN, ATM and ARY where the clasts are comparativelysmaller. This point is, however, debatable, as no such pieces are notedat MLP and NEY, while they are also present in the hills where clasts ofall sizes are freely available. Levallois flakes predominate at ATM,where local nodule size is smaller. No Levallois blade and point coreswere noted despite the presence of these blank types. At sites where raw material is easily available the size ofdebitage, in particular cortical debitage, tends to be larger. Corticaldebitage has a chunkier or globular globularresembling a globe.globular hearta spherical cardiac silhouette, usually greatly enlarged and lacking the detailed outline of the right and left atria and apex. Characteristic of pericardial effusion and cardiomyopathy. aspect as is also noted in otherareas where quartzites are used (Jones 1994: 279). At almost all sites,equal percentages of `late' stage to `early' stage debitagepredominates. Only a few tool classes are seen at each site. In general, retouchis only along one edge and rarely does the same edge bear more than onetype of retouch. Artefacts with more than one type of retouch alongdifferent edges are noted in small percentages at all sites. Retouchtypes are often dependent on the thickness of the tool/ edge, with steepretouch in cases where the tool is thick. Retouch comprises steepabrupt, irregular scalar retouch with few cases of alternate or inverseretouch. Broken tools are few and re-use of older artefacts as indicatedby differential patination is noted at some sites. At other sitesbroken/exhausted cores have been converted by rechipping intocore-scrapers. These are most common at ATM and ARY, along with a highpercentage of tools on debitage, pointing to intensive utilization ofsuch resources. FIGURE 7 is a simplied lithic reduction sequence. [Figure 7 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the absence of organic remains or excavated sites,interpretations of hominid settlement strategies must remain tentative.Sites such as NAK (Negative AcKnowledgement) A communications code used to indicate that a message was not received, or that a terminal does not wish to transmit. Contrast with ACK. NAK - Negative Acknowledgement , KRN, PLP, located on hillslopes, with low artefactdensities, use of thermal fracture spalls and minimally retouched largetools, may point to short-term special-purpose sites. Most sites display little evidence of preliminary core trimming andthe abundance of debitage in preference to cores points to considerablemovement of partly trimmed cores and tools across the landscape. Truequarry sites have yet to be discovered. Strategies linked to the preparation of raw material inanticipation of use, the importing and transport of cores/bifaces toareas where raw material is rare and the re-use of older/ broken toolsand debitage is seen at most sites in the region. Artefactsrepresentative of Levallois, blade and biface technology are oftenassociated with strategies representing higher degrees of mobility, butare however outnumbered by non-standardized tools. In addition to resource structure, the repeated reoccupation ofsites through time (from the Acheulian onwards), with the highest tooldensities in sites located close to the river, could be tied toanticipation of re-usable raw materials, in particular in those areaswhere they are scarce. One possible strategy emerging is the seasonalmovement of hominids between the river and the hills based on theavailability of water and associated game. The Kortallayar basin represents the southernmost extension of theIndian Middle Palaeolithic, and regional variability as reflected inlithic technology needs to be examined. Most Indian Middle Palaeolithicsites display predominant use of locally available raw material, exceptat Samnapur (Misra et al. 1990) and the Son valley sites (Sharma &Clark 1983), and this pattern also emerges from the Kortallayar sitecomplex. No relationship between artefact types and rock types is seenin the study region; and this is true for most Indian MiddlePalaeolithic sites except Jamalpur (Jayswal & Pant 1977-78) and theSon valley sites (Sharma & Clark 1983). A shift in raw material fromquartzites used during the Acheulian to siliceous siliceousrelating to or made of silica or a silicate. rocks is noted only inthose areas where such material was available. It has been noted that atIndian Middle Palaeolithic sites where quartzites predominate, toolshave greater dissimilarities in shapes and less pronounced retouch (Alam1990; Misra 1972), and this is a common feature in the Kortallayar basinsites. A continuation of Acheulian types is noted here as elsewhere andhas been linked by Misra (1972) to the continued use of quartzites. Theprepared core element (Jayswal 1978) is observed in the Kortallayarbasin sites; and is linked to the use of quartzites, in contrast withthe blade element predominant in areas with siliceous raw materials. Asstudied elsewhere in India (Sankalia 1974: 148), the size of tools inthe Kortallayar basin is closely linked to the size of raw materials.Misra (1972) believes that during the Middle Palaeolithic there is adecrease in the size of tools and craftsmanship, and a decline in thepercentage of Levallois flakes and an increase in tools on thin naturalpieces with retouched margins. This is also seen over parts of Central,Western and Southern India (Sankalia 1974: 150; Joshi & Sali 1969),where natural nodules or pieces of stone were retouched into points andborers marked by a lack of symmetry and refinement. These observationshold good for the Kortallayar basin sites as well. Important to note isthe unusual predominance of cores at the site of Lakhmapur (Petraglia etal. in preparation), in contrast to other Indian Middle Palaeolithicsites. In the present state of our knowledge, variability in lithictechnology in the Indian Middle Palaeolithic appears to cross-cutgeographic and environmental boundaries and to be largely conditioned byraw material constraints. This study takes a small step forward in highlighting aspects oflithic technology and regional variability within the little-knownMiddle Palaeolithic of South India. A programme of excavations ofselected sites, beginning with on-going work at the Lower and MiddlePalaeolithic site of Attirampakkam (ATM), will aid in resolving problemsrelated to the Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic transition in thisregion, and provide dates and more information on Quaternary quaternary/qua��ter��nary/ (kwah��ter-nar?e)1. fourth in order.2. containing four elements or groups.qua��ter��nar��yadj.1. Consisting of four; in fours. environments. The Indian Middle Palaeolithic has yielded little exceptstone tools and much work remains to be done towards understandinghominid behaviour in this part of the Subcontinent, in contrast to itsbetter-known counterparts in Europe, Africa and Asia. Acknowledgements. I thank Dr Michael Petraglia and Prof. CliveGamble for their critical comments on drafts of this paper, and Prof. K.Paddayya for his guidance. This work was carried out at the DeccanCollege, Pune. References ALAM, M.S. 1990. 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