About the book:
 
This book presents a comprehensive account of the Lower Palaeolithic culture representing the earliest stage of preliterate or hunting-gathering way of life, which has an antiquity of more than one million years in the South Asian region. The book arises from a critical review of various kinds of archaeological evidence - numerous stone tool assemblages obtained from different regions, plant and animal remains, palaeo-environmental data and absolute dates processed by various radiometric dating methods that has accumulated from detailed and painstaking regional surveys and planned excavations over the 150 years.
After a brief introductory note about man's place in the whole scheme of biological evolution and his earliest cultural traces as known from East Africa and other regions of the Old World, Paddayya and Deo take up a detailed assessment of the evidence for Early Man available in South Asia itself the astounding geographical diversity present in the region and its palaeo-environmental conditions coeval with the story of Early Man, beginnings and progress of Stone Age research, nature of archaeological record available till now, and the major developmental stages identified in the evolution of Early Man's culture and their chronological brackets.
The final chapter attempts an anthropologically oriented reconstruction of the 'Essential Ways of Life" during the Formative Era of hunting-gathering. In particular, the authors emphasize that a) the earliest hunter-gatherer societies of South Asia, far from leading a hapless and dreary life, were dynamic and innovative in their own way and made intelligent use of and were well adapted to their respective regional ecological settings tied together by seasonality-driven monsoonal climate; and b) that these groups simultaneously also initiated symbolic or non- utilitarian behavior (collection and even worship of curious-looking natural objects, rudimentary art creations, personal ornaments, etc.) which is unique to the human species.
The book concludes with some observations about the very relevance of the study of this remote but foundational past in the context of various modernization processes as well as identity crises of different kinds being experienced in contemporary South Asia.

Author/Editor: K Paddayya & Sushama D Geo
Publisher: The Mythic Society
ISBN: 978-81-932702-3-3
Paperback: 182 pages
Size: 18.0 x 24 x 1.2 cm