Main characteristics of the Palaeolithic age

1. The Indian people are believed to have belonged to the ‘Negrito’ race, and lived in the open air, river valleys, caves and rock shelters.
2. They were food gatherers, ate wild fruits and vegetables, and lived on hunting.
There was no knowledge of houses, pottery, agriculture. It was only in later stages they discovered fire.
3. In the upper palaeolithic age, there is evidence of art in the form of paintings.
Humans used unpolished, rough stones like hand axes, choppers, blades, burins and scrapers.
4. Palaeolithic men are also called ‘Quartzite’ men in India as the stone tools were made of a hard rock called quartzite.

The old stone age or palaeolithic age in India is divided into three phases according to the nature of the stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of the change of climate.

:- Lower Palaeolithic Age: up to 100,000 BC
:- Middle Palaeolithic Age: 100,000 BC – 40,000 BC
:- Upper Palaeolithic Age: 40,000 BC – 10,000 BC