Discovery of stone age tools from Tripura and its relevance to the Prehistory of Southeast Asia

Abstract

Recent discovery of stone age sites in the Quaternary fluvial terraces has brought Tripura-on the prehistoric cultural map of India and Southeast Asia. Artifacts have been collected from 25 localities spread over 45 km radius around Agartala in course of Quaternary mapping in West Tripura. These findings demonstrate the existence of multiple dispersed colonies of stone age people on the stabilised river terraces. The geological context of these sites is well established. The tools occur in open stations (primary sites) mostly on the dissected remnants of the upper most terrace (T 1) lying between 5 m and 15m above extent floor regime (20 m-83 m) above m.s.l. These are found profusely scattered in open fields, and as interlayers within the moderate yellowish brown light brown and greyish orange (1 0 YR 5/4, 5 YR 5/6 and