It is important to reassess, formulate and develop India's civilizational and cultural imperatives in an increasingly globalised world. The nation’s perception of its ancient history plays a major role in this. The present series on the history of ancient India was conceived with this in mind. The aim is to put forward a nationalistic, factual and objective history of the ancient Indian past in eleven volumes. The cobwebs of certain ideas that we have lived with in the past are critically examined and in many cases found wanting and discarded.

The present volume, i.e. Volume I, is about the genesis and the development of Stone Age cultures in the country. This is preceded by an examination of the historical diversity and richness of the Indian land and also of the various ideas pertaining to the physical elements of the people who inhabit this land. The prehistoric data available from the various parts of the country are scrupulously examined and they lead to the dominant impression of a seamless continuity through different prehistoric stages. What also emerges is the enormous hunting-gathering potential of the Indian landscape and the position of the Indian landmass in the general context of human evolution.