The Man Who Found Narmada Man

 

 

 

Onaquiet December evening in 1982, what first appeared to be a half-ringed bone on a Narmada riverbed would soon rewrite the subcontinent’s human history. It was Dr Arun Sonakia, a paleontologist with the Geological Survey of India, who uncovered India’s oldest known human ancestor - later named the Narmada Man. Dr Arun Sonakia (1945–2018) became internationally famous for his discovery of a human fossil on December 5, 1982. The remain, in the form of a human skull, was discovered from Hathnora village in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, about 35 kms east of Hoshangabad, along the Narmada River’s bank. On the river bed, it first appeared like a half-ring bone, late in the dusk on December 4, 1982. Since it was getting dark,

 

Dr Sonakia with his men left it at that but returned the next morning. Post-excavation, it looked like a hominid cranium, with hidden clues. It soon came to be dated and tagged as a fossilised human remain of the Homo erectus species.Abovid (cattle species) remain found nearby was also dated along with the human skull using the gamma spectrometric U-series dating method. This find turned out to be of the present-day human’s oldest ancestor from the Indian subcontinent, not less than 236,000 years old. It made a landmark revelation about human life in this part of the world, leading to the outdating of theories about the Peking Man, Java Man, and the African Man, who were earlier thought to be our ancestors.

 

Dr Sonakia’s work gained worldwide recognition instantly, and he thereafter worked under the acclaimed French anthropologist, Prof Henry de Lumley. He was honoured with National Mineral Award in 1984–85 for his find and had visited the USA, Japan, France, Indonesia, and some other European countries to pursue further interaction and research with experts. He took efforts to synthesize morphological study data, crucial to assigning his fossil find an appropriate taxonomic status. Dr Sonakia questioned the age-old myth which says our ancestors of the Indian subcontinent were Aryans who came from the Middle East - such is the conventionally accepted demographic feeder pool. A pertinent question he raised was about a myriad of artefacts like crude stone tools known as Paleolithic tools and implements shaped with refined manufacturing techniques used by the prehistoric men, found in our country. We need to think beyond our Indus Valley

 

Civilizations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa (3300 - 1300 BCE), Dr Sonakia contended. He later worked under the guidance of Prof Prakash M Tapaswi at the Geology Department of RTMNU, Nagpur, and was awarded a PhD. Incidentally, Dr Sonakia had maintained a diary with meticulous records about his find and about the research he had undertaken thereafter. He retired from the GSI in 2005 as Director, Paleontology Division, GSI, Nagpur. His death following a tragic car accident on May 18, 2018 in Hoshangabad (MP), was a shocker. Dr Sonakia’s daughter Shweta, along with her mother and siblings, wanted the diary to see the light of day as a good publication. Dr Ayyaswami, retired Dy Director General, GSI, and an acclaimed paleontologist, voluntarily edited the diary's contents, making it fit for publication as a book. This book was released on on July 24, 2025 by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune.

 

The publication comprises six chapters with 157 pages. The first chapter, “Introduction,” discusses Dr Sonakia’s rendezvous with internationally renowned paleo-anthropologists, critical examination of his find by peers being a firsttimer, the subsequent wide interest generated, and his invitations to attend international seminars abroad. Thereafter, it discusses the geological time scale, origin of life including flora and fauna, evolution of primates, and the position of man on this evolutionary time scale. The next chapter, two, is about the history of human fossil finds with the evolution of hominoid species in the primate group. Finds like skeletal human remains from other continents are discussed to build up the genetic tree.

 

The important third chapter describes the Narmada Man in detail, with emphasis on different parts of the skull, their relevance, and their variations, reflecting on evolution. Comparisons have been made with similar finds from other parts of the globe. The fourth chapter dwells on the associated Paleolithic culture, wherein the implements and tools used by early humans are described. They primarily used these for hunting and mincing meat. The range of stone and wooden tools also changed with the passing years from the rudimentary, progressing to advanced — throwing light on the then improvisation timelines. The fifth chapter, on contemporary fauna, emphasises the nonhominid faunal species identified and collected along with the human skull find. These reveal tales about the range of terrestrial life of the times and the different hunting methods of the then hominoids.

 

The associated fossil remains also provided valuable clues about the age of the Homo erectus skull find under review. The sixth and last chapter reveals clues about the potential, prospective, and most likely sites for future workers in the field to look for humanoid fossils. River terraces of Pleistocene Age, approximately 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, in locations like river banks and beds, limestone caves in India, and coastal sedimentary beds on the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea are the most prospective.

 

The book is penned using simple language and would be an interesting read for students, researchers, geologists, anthropologists, those from allied fields, and even laymen — to inspire and motivate their appreciation of humanoid evolution. Field studies on river terraces of Brahmaputra, Sabarmati, Jhelum, and Tamirabarani rivers to the east, west, north, and south respectively could lead to more discoveries of similar human fossil remains, according to Dr Ayyaswami, the Editor, who wrote the introduction chapter. ■