Abstract:

The Indian subcontinent is a capstone wedged between the western and eastern parts of Asia. Its contribution to the complex narrative of hominization is critical. In the last few decades, robust paleoanthropological scholarship in India has emerged from colonial paralysis. Non-linear chronological thinking and deconstructive approaches to derelict taxonomies are signatures of the current discourse in India. Indeed, the subcontinent boasts some of the oldest Acheulean manifestations in the world, and if it was not for a marked absence of cranial and post-cranial material, it would certainly have already demonstrated the fundamental role it played in catering to waves of hominin dispersals in the Pleistocene. The "southern route" and its corridors in the Northeast will be the geographical nodes from which I will establish a series of propositions:

1. Establishing corridors in northeast India as dynamic archaeological loci for hominin dispersals in the Pleistocene.

2. Taxonomizing the Narmada skull as Homo denisova.

3. Indexing taphonomic processes responsible for the absence/presence of hominin cranial and post-cranial material from the Pleistocene in India.

4. The need to establish a comprehensive methodology for an ephemeral archaeology capable of coping with tough terrains and short-term occupation of sites.