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On display at the Government Museum, Chennai recently were two stone tools discovered by geologist Robert Bruce Foote in May and September 1863 at the Brigade Ground at Pallavaram, Chennai, and Attirampakkam village in Tiruvallur district. He found a hand-axe at Pallavaram and a cleaver at Attirampakkam. They were paleolithic tools. Human beings fashioned them out of stones more than five lakh years to 15 lakh years ago.
Foote's discovery revolutionised the study of India's pre-history. For, it threw enormous light on how hunter-gatherers made these tools and used them to butcher animals, dig out tubers, tap sap from plants and so on. The pre-historic man was so skilful that he made a variety of these tools: hand-axes, cleavers, discoids, scrapers, choppers, knives and so on. (The word paleolithic comes from “paleo” which means old and “lithic” which means stone. Megalithic is big stone).
Although several organisations in India are preparing to celebrate the 150th year of Foote's (1834-1912) discovery of the “first paleolith of South India” next year, the Government Museum, Chennai, has chosen to “celebrate” it now and displayed these two stone tools he discovered at Pallavaram and Attirampakkam. The museum acquired his pre-historic collections in 1904.
Foote was a multi-faceted man. He was a geologist, archaeologist, ethnographer, palaeontologist, museologist and a landscape painter. He was the father of India's pre-history. He aimed for perfection in whatever he did. He systematically catalogued by 1910 all the stone tools he had discovered at Pallavaram, Attirampakkam and elsewhere. He proof-read the catalogue himself.
Shanti Pappu, specialist in Tamil Nadu's pre-history who conducted excavations at Attirampakkam and did insightful research on Foote's life and many-sided work, said: “There is no scholar of Foote's vision and perseverance in discovering India's pre-history and uniting different fields of science such as archaeology, geology, anthropology, museology etc.. into a comprehensive whole to turn the light on our past.” She called Foote “one of the most outstanding figures in India's archaeology.”
Read more in The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/history-and-culture/article3516451.ece
with thanks to Coldrum
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