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The Stone Age
Stone Age civilization in the Indian subcontinent started with the beginning of human settlement, and progressed towards farming, and the development of tools derived from natural objects, or crafted from raw material. The Mehrgarh community represents the earliest stage of agriculture in the subcontinent[citation needed], and led to the emergence of Bronze Age culture of the Indus Valley. There may have been other early civilisations as intriguing evidence in the Edakkal Caves suggests.

The Paleolithic era
Isolated remains of Homo erectus in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley in Central India indicate that India might have been inhabited since at least the Middle Pleistocene era. The precise date of these remains is unclear, and archaeologists put it anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 years ago. The fossils are the earliest human remains found in South Asia. Recent finds include a quarry along the Malaprabha River and Ghataprabha River in the Kaladgi Basin in Karnataka.

The Mesolithic era
The Mesolithic period in the Indian subcontinent covered a timespan of around 25,000 years, starting around 30,000 years ago, where the earliest discovered sites of Mesolithic culture has been unearthed in Sri Lanka. Other settlements have also been found as far north as the caves of the Hindu Kush, which seem to be a direct progression from Upper Paleolithic art. Cave paintings of game animals and human activity such as hunting, have been found at Mesolithic sites, and early forms of religious activity seem to have been found at some sites[citation needed]. Overall there is a great proliferation of Mesolithic culture throughout India, suggesting widespread habitation. Hunting, gathering, fishing, and other forms of hunter-gatherer subsistence seem to have dominated the period, however early forms of herding and small scale farming have been detected. Modern humans seem to have settled the subcontinent towards the end of the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago.

The Neolithic era
The first confirmed permanent settlements appeared 9,000 years ago in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka in modern Madhya Pradesh. By 5100 BCE, people in the Indus Valley were farming and harvesting Einkorn wheat, a primitive form of wheat[citation needed]. Early Neolithic culture in South Asia is represented by the Mehrgarh findings (7000 BCE onwards), in present day Balochistan, Pakistan. The Mehrgarh community was mostly pastoral, lived in mud houses, wove baskets and tended to goats and their farms. By 5500 BCE, pottery began to appear and later chalcolithic implements began to appear. By 2000 BCE, the settlement was abandoned.

Traces of a Neolithic culture have been found submerged in the Gulf of Khambat in 2002. Many of the finds recovered from the area have been radiocarbon dated to 7500 BCE. Late Neolithic cultures sprang up in the Indus Valley region between 6000 and 2000 BCE (see below), and in southern India between 2800 and 1200 BCE.

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