The Madrasian culture is a prehistoric culture of South India

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

. It flourished in the Early Stone Age

Stone Age

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...

. It is called the Madrasian culture because tools related to this culture were first found at Attirampakkam near Chennai

Chennai

Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...

 (Madras). Thereafter, tools related to this culture have been found at various other places. Bifacial handaxes and cleavers are typical tools of this culture. Flake tools, microliths and other chopping tools have also been found. Most of these tools were of quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

.

These industries were first discovered by Robert Bruce Foote

Robert Bruce Foote

Robert Bruce Foote was a British geologist and archaeologist who conducted geological surveys of prehistoric locations in India for the Geological Survey of India. In 1863, the year after his archaeological survey began, he discovered the first conclusive Paleolithic stone tool in India. He found...

 in 1863.

The Madrasian culture people were hunter gatherers and did not know about farming or domestication of animals.

See Also

• Soanian Culture
  Soanian
  The Soanian is an archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic in the Siwalik region of the Indian subcontinent. Contemporary to the Acheulean, it is named after the Soan Valley in the Sivalik Hills, Pakistan. Soanian sites are found along the Sivalik region in present-day India, Nepal and...
  
  
• Recent African origin of modern humans
  Recent African origin of modern humans
  In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the most widely accepted model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans...
  
  
• Multiregional origin of modern humans
  Multiregional origin of modern humans
  The multiregional hypothesis is a scientific model that provides an explanation for the pattern of human evolution. The hypothesis holds that humans first arose near the beginning of the Pleistocene two million years ago and subsequent human evolution has been within a single, continuous human...
  
  
• South Asian Stone Age
  South Asian Stone Age
  The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in South Asia. Evidence for the most ancient anatomically modern Homo sapiens in South Asia has been found in the cave sites of Batadomba lena and Beli lena in Sri Lanka.In Mehrgarh, in what is today western...
  
  
• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
  Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
  The synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures gives a rough picture of the relationships between the various principal cultures of prehistory outside the Americas, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania...