Hukay

88an exposed rock bench. The vast tracts of fertile black soil as well as thedense forests of the district are virtually devoid of microlithic remains.Elsewhere in Narmada basin, microliths have been found in alluvial blackcotton soil of the Post-Pleistocene aggradations (De Terra and De Chardin1936; Krishnaswami 1947). Such stratigraphic findings from Mandla areyet to be discovered and the same could be of immense importance inestablishing the upper limit of the tradition.Microlithic remains are found in barrah land usually on the edge offorest (i.e. foot hills) than being right at the middle (i.e. up hills). Theirvirtual absence in heavily cultivated flat lands is conspicuous. In thiscontext the following possible hypothetical situations could be assumed:First, settlement of hunting-gathering community was suitable in forestedbarrah on the foot hills for both subsistence and habitation compared toopen ground. The flat alluvium virtually remained vacant until thecultivating communities colonised it at a later historical time. The secondpossibility could be that once the microliths using hunter-gatherers livedin the entire region extending from flat plains to forested barrah. Andeventually a section of them adopted cultivation and settled down onalluvium. The conservative section who continued hunting-gatheringsremained in forests and pushed further and further with successiveexpansion of the farming population either by internal reproduction or bymigration. Or a more advanced group of farmers successively forced thelocal hunter-gatherers to retire further and further into the inaccessibleforests.The first possibility, as mentioned above does not quite complywith the distribution of sites. Microlithic site in Ghugra found right in themiddle of vast flat agricultural fields clearly defies the same. The secondpossibility instead fits well with the distribution of sites. Assuming thatagricultural expansion occupied the fertile lands where subsequentcivilisations grew, any previous archaeological deposits over there hadbeen destroyed by the onslaught of successive developments. On theother hand in forests where Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures flourishedsuccessfully, but no subsequent civilisation emerged, the archaeologicalremains survived more or less undisturbed. In Mandla, in several places,as one move from intensively cultivated area to the area only recentlybrought under cultivation and further up to less cultivated barrah, onewould come across more and more stone tools. In Partala, microliths arefound in concentrated clusters in barrah lands. The same is often found onthe edge of a cultivated area, but almost scarce right at the middle of it.Roy