Prehistoric Odisha

The present book "Prehistoric Odisha: with special reference to Somakoi Basin" is primarily based on an archaeologiocal survey of the Somakoi basin which spreads over the districts of Keonjhar and Anugul in North Odisha.It is delineating with Prehistoric cultures and historical period. The present work is based on the primary data collected by the author.The Trial excavation also provided cultural succession of mesolithic and neolithic culture of the area. In additon to the stone tools of prehistoric cultures,The historical period is also added significant parameter in the form of ceramics assemblages etc. The area was Not given proper attention by the Pre -historian and archaeologist prior To the present work. The detailed morphological and typological studies of the stone tolls are duly illustrated through tables, line drawing and charts.

The present work entitled Prehistoric Odisha: With special reference to Somakoi Basin attempts to provide a detail survey of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic industries of the micro region taking into consideration to environmental adaptation of the prehistoric people and produced lithic implements of different prehistoric period. Interestingly, the survey area provide a wide variety of lithic assemblages so a trial trench also laid at Telkoi site to understand the cultural deposits and possibilities of draw paleo-cultural activities in North Odisha.

The North Odisha is well known for its archaeological evidences. There are number of prehistoric as well as historic sites reported from Keonjhar district. Because of closeness to the region and belongs to one of them I am very much interested to prepare the comprehensive data. This is quite a modest attempt to reconstruct the archaeological prospect of North Odisha. The archaeological remains clearly imply that the area shows a sequence from Lower Palaeolithic to Neolithic period, in which sites with the Microliths and Neolithic or ground stone tools are more numerous.

The present work forms a part of the M. Phil assignment and has taken the present shape by the help and inspiration of many benevolence minds and hands. It is my prime responsibility to express and acknowledge such help and contributions. While completing this stupendous task, I owe my indebtedness to Prof. S.K. Ghoshmaulik (Retd.), the then head of the Department of Anthropology for giving opportunity to under take the field work. Again I owe my gratitude to all my teachers of Post Graduate Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar for their moral support.

I am grateful to Prof. K.C. Tripathy (Retd.), for his encouragement, sincere guidance, valuable advice and keen interest without which it would not have been possible for completing this work.

Words are very poor to express my deep sense of gratitude to my guide Prof. Kishore K. Basa, whose restless effort, timely guidance and effective advice chanalised me in the direction of materializing on the present work.

I am happy to introduce the book "prehistoric Odisha with special reference to Somakol Basin' to the scholarly world as well as the general readers. The work is a novel attempt by the author to analyse prehistoric developments in Odisha. Earlier works on the subject have dealt with prehistoric culture of various parts of the State. The present work documents the earlier contributions in the field and at the same time, provides new materials in prehistoric scenario of Odisha, with special reference to Northern Odisha. The author has carried out extensive explorationis in the Somakoi basin of district Keonjhar of Odisha.

Dr.Rajendra Dehuri has highlighted the prehistoric archaeology of North Odisha, with the help of field data, illustrations in the form of drawings, pal chart, photographs, tables with percentage of different stone tools and raw materials. During the field study, prehistoric as well as historical antiquities of the region were documented which are significant to understand the cultural sequence of the region.

Though lower paleolithics sites are few in number, a number of sites with upper Paleolithic artifacts, microlithic artifacts of Mesolithic period have been studied as components of flake and blade industry. A well developed blade technology is characterized of the Somakol Basin. Neolithic sites, both finished and unfinished artefacts, are reported; the ring stone and axe are being the two dominant types of artifact.

The study has highlighted unknown cultural aspects of the region. I am sure, this work will be very helpful to scholars interested in archaeology and anthropology of Odisha in general and North Odisha studies in particular. The work is a welcome addition to Odishan studies.

Research in Indian prehistory has travelled a long way since the first discovery of prehistoric relics by Robert Bruce Foote in 1863. Research in stone age archaeology which is filled up with the arrival of H.D. Sankalia on the scene, since then researches in the field of Indian prehistory have passed through many developments in the methodogical and interpretational phases. There has been growing emphasis on quantitative and qualitative analysis of stone age artefacts and from the 1960s extensive use of statistic is being made in the field of prehistoric archaeology (Mishra 1992, Jacobson 1979). The prehistoric archaeology study is drastic change in India since the 1970s, as a corollary to the new advancements, made in other parts of the world, in methodology and theoretical interpretations.

The Indian sub-continent shows varied geographical settings in respect of land forms, vegetation, drainage system etc. The fundamental assumption which has been realised is that man is a part of the environment (natural and social) and that his behavioural patterns (explicated by an appraisal of archaeologically visible residue of human behaviour) reflect his adoptative strategies in time and space. Moreover, it has now became a common practice to subject an archaeological site for intensive investigations to enumerate the sum total of human behaviour, land use patterns, exploitative strategies, dietary habits and the possible types of social organization. Fortunately, in the Indian context, parallels for such an explication can be drawn from the various tribal groups. whose occupational zones, quite often are contiguous with the stone age habitats stone Age studies in the Indian subcontinent since the last two decades have established on firm grounds for the temporal spatial distribution of Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period respectively. Indian prehistorians have been focusing attention to evaluate the interaction of man with the environments and the variation within a cultural system (called micro variation) by investigating a single geographical unit at the micro level. This has been adopted in the last one decade by many prehistorians (Mishra 1973, Jacabson 1975, Murty 1982, Paddaya 1982 and Cooper 1983).

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