The Earth is over 4000 million years old. The evolution of its crust shows four stages. The fourth stage is called the Quaternary, which is dived into Pleistocene (most recent) and Holocene (present); the former lasted between 2,000,000 and 10,000 years before the present and the latter began about 10,000 years ago. Man is said to have appeared on the earth in the early Pleistocene, when true horse also originated. But now this event seems to have occurred in Africa about three million years back.

Much work has not been done on the pre-historic period of Indian history. The discovery of Paleolithic at Pallavaram near Madras by R. Bruce Foote in 1863 was a great land mark. The initial studies focused on the north-west, in terraces of the Soan River and in the Potwar Plateau. Since then sites have been found scattered across the subcontinent. Habitations tended to be in rock shelters, located in Madhya Pradesh was at Bhimbetka but also found in other parts of India, or in caves such as at Sanghao (north-west Pakistan), or in Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh), or even sometimes as camps in the open, although there is less evidence for the latter type of settlement than for rock shelters. Shelters in the open were sometimes made of foliage and would therefore not survive, but stone tools and signs of settlement provide clues to such shelters. Sites are generally located near water sources and where plants are readily available. Fossil remains are another source of information and fossil animals include some that were eventually domesticated, such as cattle, sheep, goats and others that remained in the wild, including the cat family and deer. In the earliest stage food was obtained by hunting animals and gathering edible plants and rubbers. Settlements tended to be close to scrub jungles and watering places as, for instance, at Hungis. The hunting of large animals would have required the combined effort of a group of people, whereas smaller animals could be more easily ensnared or hunted by individuals.

Stone tools, hand-sized and flaked-off large pebbles, are among the more obvious
characteristics of Paleolithic sites. Large pebbles are often found in river terraces, such as those of the Soan Valley or the upper reaches of rivers as in the Siwalik Hills of the north. A skull found in the Narmada Valley is likely to yield interesting evidence. Various techniques of analyzing plant and animal remains help in the reconstruction of environment and climate.

Variations in climate were an additional challenge to the small bands of hunter-gatherers. Their way of life moved gradually towards attempts to domesticate of the world around them is race. We know little about how they communicated and next to nothing about the language they spoke, nor much about what constituted their concerns beyond the obvious. A few paintings on rock at Bhimbetka, discovered alongside other later paintings, are thought to be of this period and reflect a concern with success in hunting and with fertility. At Baghor I (Madhya Pradesh) a natural stone, shaped like a triangle, have been interpreted as a symbol of female fertility. Parallel to it, is the worship of a similar stone as a goddess in neighboring, villages today. Paleolithic remains have also found in Hyderabad (Telangana), Dharwar, Bijapur, Belgaum, Gujarat, Rewa and Bhundhelkhand. Old Stone Age implements have also been found in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. The Paleolithic man in India was a savage who lived in the "drifts of rivers or lakes and caves". He ate roots, fruits, nuts and the
flesh of wild beasts.

The fossils of the early men have not been found in India. A hint of the earliest human presence is indicted by stone tools obtained from the deposits ascribable to the dated around 250,000 B.C. the Paleolithic man used various implements such as axes, arrow-heads, spears, digging tools, circular stones, hurling choppers, knives, scrapers, hammer stones, etc. these implements when they were sharp edged, were held in cleft bamboos, secured by strips of hide or vegetable fibre. The early man in India used tools of stone roughly dressed by crude chipping, which have been discovered throughout the country except the alluvial plains of Indus, Ganga and Yamuna rivers. The chipped stone tools and chopped pebbles were used for hunting, cutting and other purpose. In this period man barely managed to gather his food and lived no hunting. He had no knowledge of cultivation and house building. Some of these implements had thick but ends, which were used for digging edible roots or for hand to hand fights. Implements of hard wood were also used. Those were clubs or sharp-edged spheres. This phase generally continued till 10000 B.C.

Paleolithic tools, which could be as old as 100,000 B.C., have been found in the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Such tools belonging to 20,000 B.C.-10,000 B.C. have been found in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh. In association with them bone implements and animals remains have also been discovered. Animal remains found the Belan Valley in Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh show that goats, sheep and cattle were exploited. The Paleolithic man had to protect himself from tigers, lions, panthers, wolves, wild dogs, hyaenas, elephants, wild buffaloes, etc.

However, in the earliest Paleolithic phase man lived on hunting and food gathering. Paintings were discovered in 1910 in some caverns at Singanpur near Raigarh in Madhya Pradesh. Paintings have also been found in Kaimur ranges and also in the Mirzapur district.

PHASES OF THE PALEOLITHIC AGE

The Paleolithic Age in India is divided into three phases according to the nature of the stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of change in the climate. The first phase is called Early or Lower Paleolithic the second Middle Paleolithic and the third Upper Paleolithic. The first phase may be placed broadly, between 500,000 B.C. and 50,000 B.C.; the second between 50,000 B.C. and 40,000 B.C. and the third between 40,000 B.C. and 10,000 B.C.

Early Paleolithic Age

The Lower Paleolithic or the Early Old Stone Age covers the greater part of the Ice Age. Its characteristic feature is the use of hand-axes, cleavers and choppers. The axes found in India are more or less similar to those of western Asia, Europe and Africa. Stone tools were used mainly for chopping, digging and skinning. The Early Old Stone Age sites are fond in the valley of river Soan or Sohan in Punjab, now in Pakistan. Several sites have been found in Kashmir and the Thar Desert (in Rajasthan State). The Lower Paleolithic tools have also been found in the Belan valley in Mirzapur District in Uttar Pradesh. Those found in the desert area of Didwana in Rajasthan. In the valleys of the Belan and the Narmada, and in the caves and rock shelters o f Bhimbetka near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh roughly belong to 100,000 B.C. The rock shelters may have served as seasonal camps for human beings. Hand-axes have been found in a deposit of the time of the second Himalayan inter-glaciations. In this period climate became less humid.

Middle Paleolithic Age:

The Middle Paleolithic industries are mainly based upon flakes. These flakes are found in different parts of India and show regional variations. The principal tools are varieties of blades, points, borers and scrapers made of flakes. We also find a large number of borers and blade-like tools. The geographical horizon of the Middle Paleolithic sites coincides roughly with that of the Lower Paleolithic sites. Here we notice a crude pebble industry in strata contemporary with the third Himalayan glaciations. The artifacts of this age are also found at several places on the river Narmada, and also at several places, south of the Tungabhadra River.

Upper Paleolithic Age 

The Upper Paleolithic phase was less humid. It coincided with the last phase of the Ice Age when climate became comparatively warm. In the world context it marks the appearance of new flint industries and of men of the modern type (Homo sapiens) in India. We notice the use of blades and burins, which have been found in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Central Madhya Pradesh, Southern Uttar Pradesh, South Bihar plateau and the adjoining areas. Caves and rock shelters for use by human beings in the Upper Paleolithic phase have been discovered at Bhimbetka, 45km South of Bhopal. An Upper Paleolithic assemblage, characterized by comparatively large flakes, blades, burins and scrapers has also been found in the upper levels of the Gujarat dunes. It would thus appear that Paleolithic sites are found in many hilly slopes and river valleys of the country; they are absent in the alluvial plains of the Indus and the Ganga.

PRE HISTORIC ART

The people of Paleolithic and Mesolithic ages practiced painting. Prehistoric art appears at several places, but Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh is a striking site. Situated in the Vindhya Range, 45 km south of Bhopal, it has more than 500 painted rock shelters, distributed in an area of 10 sq km. The rock painting extended from the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic period and in some series even up to recent times. But a good many rock shelters are associated with the Mesolithic occupation. Many birds, animals and human beings are painted. Obviously most of the birds and animals that appear in paintings were hunted for the sake of subsistence. Pershing birds, which live upon grain, are absent in the earliest group of paintings, which evidently belongs to the hunting / gathering economy.

It is interesting to note that on the northern spurs of the Vindhyas in the Belan valley all the three phases of the Paleolithic followed by the Mesolithic and then by the Neolithic have been found in sequence, and so is the case with the middle part of the Narmada valley. But in several areas the Neolithic culture succeeded the Mesolithic tradition, which continued right to the beginning of the Iron Age, i.e. 1000 B.C.