Middle Palaeolithic point technologies in the Thar Desert, India

Point technologies form a key component of Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age industries across the Old World. However, only limited attention has been paid to the appearance of point technologies in the South Asian context. Two recent studies have indicated that the lack of Indian point technologies that are analogous to those known from the African Middle Stone Age and Arabian Middle Palaeolithic presents the basis to reject models for modern human dispersals into India associated with Middle Palaeolithic technologies. This study examines the role point technologies play in the Middle Palaeolithic record of the Thar Desert and situates them within the wider context of South Asia and adjacent regions to the west. A synthesis of existing evidence indicates that points form a key component of Middle Palaeolithic industries in the Thar Desert. New descriptions of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from the Thar Desert highlight the repeated presence of debitage and façonnage approaches which suggest the use of specific reduction strategies in point production, rather than opportunistic or expedient methods. These results are placed in the wider context of the role points have played in Middle Palaeolithic reduction strategies within South Asia. Given the presence of point technologies in the Thar Desert that are comparable with contemporaneous technologies in North Africa and Arabia, we suggest that Middle Palaeolithic dispersal models cannot be rejected on the basis of their absence.