A report on the largest archaeological site in South Asia, an industrial-scale enterprise that goes back hundreds of thousands of years: flint mining. >
This paper considers one aspect of the research conducted by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Sindh, more specifically the discovery of the Indus flint mines of the III millennium BC in the Rohri Hills, and the excavations carried out at flint mine RH962. >
The research carried out in the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia, Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula has improved our knowledge of the Middle Paleolithic in the regions. However, the southeasternmost distribution of the Levallois Mousterian is still poorly defined. >
A very important recent exposition of one of the most important underlying elements – used to make fire, crucial items like weights and much else – of ancient Indus civilization and its connection to, in particular the Rohri Hills. >
The authors write that "the discovery of a knapped stone assemblage with microlithic backed tools and geometrics represents a groundbreaking point for the prehistory of Punjab. It opens new research perspectives in a promising territory that had never been explored before, where surveys are undoubtedly to be continued in the future because of its great potential." >
It has really only been since the 1980s that a more comprehensive picture of the wide and deep roots of Indus civilization in the larger Sindh and Balochistan region have become apparent. Mehrgarh did not spring out of nowhere but was embedded in a region where fishing, shell collecting, flint mining and other crafts were present and flourishing at different times. >
"The scope of this paper is to update and discuss the available evidence for prehistoric fishing along the Arabian Sea coasts of the Sultanate of Oman, Las Bela and Sindh in Pakistan," write the authors. By prehistoric they mean going back to at least the 7th millennium BCE (7000-6000 BCE). >
Italian archaeologists have been critical to unearthing the distant human past in Sindh and Balochistan for many years. This paper describes in detail yet another important find which in the words of the authors is "the prehistoric settlement of Sonari (SNR-1). Sonari is the only Bronze Age fisher-… >
