Prehistoric Sites from 1.5 million years BP

The earliest evidence of humans in India dates to approximately 1.5 million years ago in fragments of fossil tools found in Attirampakkam and Krishna, in southeast and southern central India respectively. A partial human skull, probably Homo Erectus, dating back 500,000 years has been recovered from valley of the River Narmada. To the north, along the River Soan in Pakistan, are earlier traces still, with tool fragments dating back 2 million years, and cave paintings from about 1.4 million years ago. Mesolithic remains are found at a number of sites, for instance, Brahmagiri, and at Jorwe. By the Neolithic (c. 5000 BCE) social stratification is apparent in differential property and land-holding size. All else is eclipsed, however, by the scale and sophistication of the Bronze Age Indus civilization. From around 3300 BCE, spreading at its peak over some 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square km), its construction, art and technology were comparable to contemporary Egypt and Sumeria.