• The idea of pre-history is barely 200 years old. And so is the word pre-history; it was fi rst used by M.
Tournal in 1833.
• Dr. Primrose rediscoverd Indian pre-history by discovering prehistoric implements (stone knives and arrow heads) in 1842 at a place called Lingsugur in Karnataka.
• Robert Bruce was another person who enriched our knowledge about Indian prehistory when he discovered a large number of prehistoric sites in South India and collected Stone Age artifacts.
• These early efforts could not place India on the prehistoric map of the world.
• Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s efforts in 1921, resulted in our knowledge of the entire pre historic culture sequence of India, putting India fi rmly on the world map of prehistory.
• As regards the early man; no fossils of early man have been found in the entire subcontinent, but their presence is indicated by stone tools dated around 250,000 BC. Earliest traces of human activity in India go back to the second Inter-Glacial period between 400,000 and 200,000 B.C.
• From their first appearance to around 3000 B.C. humans used only stone tools for different purposes. Based on the tool mining traditions, this period is therefore known as the Stone Age and the entire Stone Age culture has been divided into 3 main stages i.e. Paleolothic (early or Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age).
