The earliest stone artefacts or tools associated with hominids are pebbles of quartz known as chopping tools. The finds from Riwat and from Siwalik deposits in the Pabbi hills belong to this tradition. However, the finds from Pabbi hills fall between the Riwat finds and the hand-axe tradition of the subsequent period.

The next stage in the development of stone tools is the coming of hand-axe and cleavers. Apart from the discovery of hand-axes in Tamil Nadu in 1860s and then in Sind, these were recorded from Las Bela district and the Bugti hills of Baluchistan as well as in the mountain valleys to the north-west of the Indian plains.

Such tools are also found at surface sites and in river gravels in Himalayan foot­hill valleys from the Beas to the Brahmaputra system, on outlying rocky hills within the plains of the Indus and Ganga such as Rohri hills in Sindh, and southern margins of the Ganges plains.

Along the arid central part of Rajasthan and the margins of the Rajasthan desert, some Palaeolithic artefacts were found. The calcareous loams in old stratified sand-dunes in the desert area of Didwana in Rajasthan, some Acheulean artefacts, including hand-axes belonging roughly to 100,000 BC were excavated.

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Similarly, on the Saurashtra coast in the valleys of the Narmada, some Acheulean tools were found for which two thermo luminescent dates of c. 95,000 and 67,000 years ago were obtained. Such artefacts are totally absent from the regions south of the river Kaveri along the Western Ghats.

At Dina and Jalalpur in the Jhelum basin (Pakistan Punjab) many artefacts including hand-axes dated by Palaeo-magnetism to 500,000 to 700,000 years ago were found. The Sehwal deposits in the Middle Son Valley were dated by the thermo luminescent methods to around 100,000 years ago. The Son and the adjacent Belan Valleys (Mirzapur, UP), provide a sequence of artefacts from Lower Palaeolithic to Neolithic stages.

A surface site at Hungsi in the Southern Deccan in the valleys of two streams of the Krishna river system yielded groups of hand-axes and related tools. A few of the Hungsi sites are quite large where accumulations of debris from the manufacture of different artefact types were located. These were perhaps places where people frequently lived and made tools.

Smaller sites in this area seem to have been temporary camping sites. Caches of finished tools were also found. Tools were made of hard limestone and dolerite. K. Paddayya and M.D. Petraglia, the investigators of this group, came to the conclusion that more than one group lived here on different sources of food such as game, fruit, roots and seeds.

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In Sind (Pakistan), a stone tool factory was found which is known as Milestone 101. Here, the use of raw materials belonging to every technological phase of the Palaeolithic stage has been noticed. The proportion of lower Palaeolithic material was high which included hand-axes and cleaver.

Rohri hills in upper Sind (Pakistan) also yielded lower Palaeolithic materials. Hand-axes were reported from Sukkur and Ziarat Pir Shaban. The chief characteristic of Rohri Hill sites is that these were used not only during Palaeolithic phases but also during early and mature Harappan phases.

Situated around Bhimbedka hill, in central India near Hoshangabad on the Narmada River, the caves and rock shelters have yielded evidence of Palaeolithic habitation. Many of the shelters show evidence of continuous occupation and tool making. Quite a few of them are rich in rock art, supplying extra material to understand their culture. These rock shelters roughly belong to 100,000 BC.

Adamgarh hill in the same locality has also yielded lower as well as Middle Stone age artefacts. The artefacts include hand-axes, chopping tools, ovates and a few cleavers. Attirampakkam, Budida Mann Vanka and Gudiyan cave near Madras showed a sequence of Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts. However, the occupation of the cave was irregular.

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Other localities in Peninsular and Central India, where evidence of Palaeolithic workings have been found, are Anagawadi and Bagalkot on the Ghataprabha river in Karnataka; Chirki near Newasa on the Pravara river in Maharashtra; Mahadeo Piparia on the Narmada, M.P.; Pawagarh hill in central Gujarat (factory site). Kibbanhalli in Mysore etc other localities include Lalitpur in UP: Kuliana in Mayurbhanj district, Orissa; Jalore, Pushkar and Mogara hill (Jodhpur) in Rajasthan.