Late Quaternary sediments from Barakar-Damodar Basin, Eastern India include the 74 ka Toba ash and a 17 ka microlith toolkit

[Display omitted] •Late Quaternary Barakar deposit associated with artifacts and faunal remains.•A ∼ 2 cm ash suggests glass shards probably of Youngest Toba Tuff origin.•Artifacts recovered from the Barakar site support prevalence of microlithic industry.•Modern humans reached eastern coastal regio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Asian Earth Sciences: X 2023-06, Vol.9, p.100135, Article 100135
Main Authors: Mukhopadhyay, Sourav, Roy, Biswajit, Sangode, Satish J., Jaiswal, Manoj K., Dutta, Samiran
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Fossil fauna
Glass shards
Palaeolithic culture
Pleistocene records
Youngest Toba Tuff
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Summary:[Display omitted] •Late Quaternary Barakar deposit associated with artifacts and faunal remains.•A ∼ 2 cm ash suggests glass shards probably of Youngest Toba Tuff origin.•Artifacts recovered from the Barakar site support prevalence of microlithic industry.•Modern humans reached eastern coastal region during the Marine Isotope Stage-2. The Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT, 74 ka ago) is considered as the product of one of the largest super-volcanic events in the Quaternary period, which possibly caused a disastrous effect on the climate and hominid habitation. Here, we report a rare occurrence of an ∼ 2 cm YTT ash bed in the Barakar-Damodar Late Quaternary sediments, Eastern India, and the Microlith toolkits that were found in the sedimentary deposits above the ash layer. The high silica content of the glass shards with bubble walls, blocky, rod-shaped structures, and pumice morphology, are similar to other YTT ash deposits. The sedimentary facies associated with the ash layer show a transition from lacustrine to fluvial depositional environments. Sedimentological, petrographical, mineralogical, geochemical, and magnetic properties suggest the ash was deposited in a lacustrine environment. Moreover, the discovery of the ash bed, the occurrence of in-situ Bovid species, and microlith assemblages in the Barakar-Damodar Valley add to our understanding of late Pleistocene depositional environments, hominin occupations, and possible local migration across eastern India during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) period.
ISSN:2590-0560
2590-0560
DOI:10.1016/j.jaesx.2022.100135