Diversity and Debates: Acheulian and Core-and-Flake Assemblages from Southern India

Kumar Akhilesh1*, Prachi Joshi1, Mohamed Sahnouni2, Yanni Gunnell3,4, Sutonuka Bhattacharya1, and Shanti Pappu1

We discuss Acheulian core and flake assemblages from the Lower Palaeolithic sites of Attirampakkam (ATM) and Sendrayanpalayam (SEN), Thiruvallur district, Tamil Nadu, South India. At ATM, Lower to Middle Palaeolithic stratified horizons are bracketed between ~1.7 to ~0.072 Ma. In order to situate the Acheulian of ATM in a wider regional framework, we initiated excavations at SEN (dates are awaited). This led to the discovery of stratified horizons containing a sequence of Lower Palaeolithic assemblages with Acheulian horizons overlying a core-and-flake assemblage, that is absent at ATM. This paper focuses on the variability in the Acheulian and core-and-flake assemblages from ATM and SEN. We highlight differences in reduction sequences noted at both sites and build hypotheses to explain hominin behavioural variability in terms of landscape usage and local geomorphological contexts. The diversity of lithic reduction sequences encountered in the stratigraphy documents hominin behavioural variability at each site, with strong indications that the technological sequences observed at ATM and SEN are similar to those reported from Africa and Eurasia, i.e., regions where their analogues have been linked to significant behavioural changes and associated with the timing of successive population dispersals out of Africa.