Microlithic occurrences in the central Narmada Basin, Madhya Pradesh

In the Indian Subcontinent,contexts belonging to the Late Pleistocene to early Holocene period aredominated by records of hunter-gatherer behaviour in the form of microliths.Central India offered abundant resources of the required raw materials, rockshelters, open scrubland, water bodies, various flora and fauna in the lap ofthe Vindhyan and Gondwana ranges. The region must have regularly attractedforagers through its role as a critical biogeographic and cultural crossroads. Microlithictool kit is synonymous with the prehistoric Homo sapiens (PHS). Researchcarried out in the central Narmada Basin paints a variant picture ofmicrolithic producing hunter-gatherers.

Surveys were carried out in theVindhyans in the north, Gondwanas in the southand the Narmada floodplains in between. This divides the area into northern and southern zones within the centralNarmada Basin. These areas yielded a large number of sites in the foothills,forested areas, and a few in agricultural fields. The number of sites in theVindhyan foothills is more significant than those found in the Gondwana foothills. This uneven distribution ofsites in the landscape can lead to various hypotheses, the major factor beingthe unavailability of preferred raw materials. However,a few pockets in the southern group have yielded primary sites. The technological analyses of the microlithic assemblages demonstrate a high assortment of debitage ordebris that is a by-product of prominentmanufacturing behaviour. This dynamic land use dichotomy in the Late Quaternaryperiod of the central Narmada Basin shows continuous movement on the landscapefor tool manufacture, raw material and tool transport and associatedsubsistence behaviours by PHS. The presence of abundant rock shelters at near most of theopen air sites suggests dynamic and intenselanduse patterns. The distances between the rock shelters and spatiallyassociated open-air sites are variable.Many of these rock shelters are adorned with rock art of various styles anddesigns and use of different pigments. The landscape movement of the hunter-gatherer populations is evident throughthe large number of microlithic occurrences found.