The Upper Palaeolithic in the Greater Indus Valley (Pakistan): Problems and Perspectives

Archaeological surveys carried out in Sindh in the 1970s were resumed during the last decade and are still underway. They have shown that Upper Palaeolithic assemblages occur in few territories of the Greater Indus Valley, Lower Sindh in particular. Among them are the northern coast of the Arabian Sea and the banks of the seasonal watercourses that flow into the Indian Ocean from the desert regions of the interior. The chronology of the Upper Palaeolithic complexes is difficult to define because the sites consist of surface knapped chert artefacts, in association with which organic material suitable for dating has never been retrieved. The prehistoric lithic assemblages recovered from the southernmost territories of Lower Sindh consist of typical instruments, among which are thick, curved, unilateral abrupt-retouched points obtained from core rejuvenation bladelike flakes. The blanks have been detached from corticated bipolar cores obtained from small chert pebbles. Upper Palaeolithic workshops for the production of bladelet blanks are very common in the Rohri, Ongar and Daphro Hills near Sukkur and Kotri respectively. In contrast, assemblages of this period are very rare in the northern provinces of Pakistan, most probably because of the absence of Palaeolithic research projects and surveys.