On the occasion of the 16th annual IGRMS lecture, Dr S B Ota addressed online on ‘Inquiries into Deep Human History: Investigations of Acheulian Sites around Tikoda and Damdongri in Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh’. The lecture was chaired by Director of IGRMS Dr Praveen Kumar Mishra. At the beginning of the programme, Dr Praveen Kumar Mishra honoured Dr S B Ota. While addressing 16th IGRMS annual lecture, Dr Ota said that in last two decades there is headway in pre-historic research particularly to understand the earliest stone age cultural remains i.e. Acheulian cultural remains of the Indian sub-continent.

 

It is now well established that our earliest stone age cultural remains go back to 1.5 million years. One such pocket is in Central India which is being investigated in district Raisen for last couple of years. This comprehensive study to understand the early human behaviour is being collaboration with Deccan College of Pune in Maharashtra. Systematic explorations and excavations of Acheulian sites in village jurisdiction of Tikoda and Damdongri in district Raisen have helped us understanding the various aspects of human behaviour of early Hominin in this part of the sub-continent. Investigations have shown that the area was extremely rich in Acheulian occupations in the form of large scatters of stone arte facts.

 

It has been noticed that almost all varieties of stones available in the area were utilised for manufacturing tools, but certainly there was a preference for selection of suitable materials for its fabrication. Besides, the early habitations in the form of large number of artefact clusters in the area suggest that these prehistoric hunter-gatherers had a band society with repeated occupations with a wide mobility within the valley. Such densities of lithic landscape indicates long term continuous occupation by early Hominin due to availability of suitable raw material, rich plant and animal food, water sources etc.