Archaeologists find neolithic stone tools in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Archaeologists here have recently found rare stone tools, belonging to the neolithic age, with the findings indicating the city's history goes back to about 6,000 years.

The Neolithic age relates to the period when humans used tools and weapons made of stone and had just developed farming.

It was for the first time that neolithic tools have been found in the city, said E Sivanagi Reddy, a retired government archaeology official.

Reddy, a noted archaeologist and CEO of Pleach India Foundation, said he and S Haragopal of 'Kotha Telangana Charitra Brundam' (an organisation working on the history of Telangana) recently visited a natural rock formation at BNR Hills in the city, locally known as 'tortoise rock', to explore if there were any prehistoric rock paintings when they stumbled upon the said discovery.

He said they closely looked at a gap between two rocks and found as many neolithic stone tools.

"...to our surprise, we noticed two neolithic stone tools which are known as new stone age tools. One is 12 cm in length and another is 9 cm. The width is 2.5 cm...these two stones are very, very important archaeologically. They are dated 4,000 to 2,000 BC," he said.

These stones are well polished at the bottom and each one has a butt end to hold or to fix to a wooden shaft so that it can be used as an axe, either for food collection or as a tool of self-defence, he said.

These tools are made out of blue granite stone, he added.

This important find shows that around 4,000 BC, these rock shelters served as temporary habitation site for people of the neolithic age whose subsistence was from agriculture, domestication of animals and hunting and gathering, Reddy said.

The conclusion arrived is that people lived at BNR Hills, adjacent to the posh Jubilee Hills, about 6,000 years ago, he said.

"Those people belonged to the neolithic folk. The history of Hyderabad goes (back) to 6,000 years," he stated.