THE GAZETTEER OF INDIA

        Pre-historic and proto-historic archaeology has been hitherto divided into the Stone Age. Copper Age and Iron Age. Such divisions have stressed only one aspect of man’s life over a stretch of nearly 5,00,000 years, namely, the tools and weapons the commonly used.

While these suggest the various steps by which man acquired knowledge not only of the two important metals, Copper, and Iron, but also of the manufacture of specialized stone tools and their hafting they do not, however, adequately indicate man’s may-sided ways of life.

         During the long Stone Age, estimated to cover over 5,00,000 years and forming part of the latest geological period, namely, Pleistocene, man was a savage, had no fixed habitation and could not produce his food, collected Plants and Fruits, Caught Fish And Hunted Wild Animals. Changes in environment and circumstances brought about changes in tools.

        A history of man’s development based mainly on the study of his tools is therefore possible.

The stages in man’s progress are:

1. Primitive Food Collecting Stage or Early and Middle Stone Ages.
2. Advanced Food Collecting Stage or Late Stone Age / Mesolithic.
3. Transition to Incipient Food Production or Early Neolithic.
4. Settled Village Communities or Advanced Neolithic / Chalcolithic.
5. Urbanization or Bronze Age.

        Since there are marked differences in environment and tool traditions between the Punjab and Peninsular India, it is better to treat them separately.

Until 1939, only a part of the Punjab which now falls in Western Pakistan had yielded definite traces of three or four Stone Age Cultures.

These have been called Pre-Sohan, Early Sohan, Late Sohan and Evolved Sohan, or Chopper – Chopping and Flake-and-Blade Industries. The first four names are after Sohan or Soan, one of the important tributaries of the Sindhu, along the banks of which the first artifacts were found.