The Sivalik Hills, also known as the Shivalik Hills and Churia Hills, are a mountain range of the outer Himalayas. The literal translation of "Sivalik" is 'tresses of Shiva'. [1] The hills are known for their numerous fossils, and is also home to the Soanian Middle Paleolithic archaeological culture. [2]
The Sivalik Hills are a mountain range of the outer Himalayas that stretches over about 2,400 km (1,500 mi) from the Indus River eastwards close to the Brahmaputra River, spanning the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. It is 10–50 km (6.2–31.1 mi) wide with an average elevation of 1,500–2,000 m (4,900–6,600 ft). Between the Teesta and Raidāk Rivers in Assam is a gap of about 90 km (56 mi). [3] They are well known for their Neogene and Pleistocene aged vertebrate fossils. [4]
Geologically, the Sivalik Hills belong to the Tertiary deposits of the outer Himalayas. [5] They are chiefly composed of sandstone and conglomerate rock formations, which are the solidified detritus of the Himalayas [5] to their north; they are poorly consolidated. The sedimentary rocks comprising the hills are believed to be 16–5.2 million years old. [6]
They are bounded on the south by a fault system called the Main Frontal Thrust, with steeper slopes on that side. Below this, the coarse alluvial Bhabar zone makes the transition to the nearly level plains. Rainfall, especially during the summer monsoon, percolates into the Bhabar, then is forced to the surface by finer alluvial layers below it in a zone of springs and marshes along the northern edge of the Terai or plains. [7]
The Sivalik Hills are well known for fossils of vertebrates, spanning from the Early Miocene, until the Middle Pleistocene, around 18 million to 600,000 years ago. [8] [9]
Some of the best known fossils from the hills include Megalochelys atlas , the largest known tortoise to have ever existed, [10] Sivatherium giganteum, the largest known giraffid, [11] and the ape Sivapithecus . [12]
Remains of the Lower-Middle Paleolithic Soanian culture dating to around 500,000 to 125,000 years Before Present were found in the Sivalik region. [13] Contemporary to the Acheulean, the Soanian culture is named after the Soan Valley in the Sivalik Hills of Pakistan. The Soanian archaeological culture is found across Sivalik region in present-day India, Nepal and Pakistan. [2]
This is a timeline of Indian history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in India and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of India. also see the list of governors-general of India, list of prime ministers of India and Years in India.
The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the North Indian River Plain, is a 700-thousand km2 (172-million-acre) fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of modern-day northern and eastern India, most of eastern-Pakistan, virtually all of Bangladesh and southern plains of Nepal. Also known as the Indus–Ganga Plain, the region is named after the Indus and the Ganges rivers and encompasses a number of large urban areas. The plain is bounded on the north by the Himalayas, which feed its numerous rivers and are the source of the fertile alluvium deposited across the region by the two river systems. The southern edge of the plain is marked by the Deccan Plateau. On the west rises the Iranian Plateau. Many developed cities like Delhi, Dhaka, Kolkata, Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi are located in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
Sivapithecus is a genus of extinct apes. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.2 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Sivalik Hills of the Indian subcontinent as well as in Kutch. Any one of the species in this genus may have been the ancestor to the modern orangutans.
The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the Indian subcontinent. Evidence for the most ancient Homo sapiens in South Asia has been found in the cave sites of Cudappah of India, Batadombalena and Belilena in Sri Lanka. In Mehrgarh, in western Pakistan, the Neolithic began c. 7000 BCE and lasted until 3300 BCE and the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age. In South India, the Mesolithic period lasted until 3000 BCE, and the Neolithic period until c. 1000 BCE, followed by a Megalithic transitional period, mostly skipping the Bronze Age. The Iron Age in India began roughly simultaneously in North and South India, around c. 1200 to 1000 BCE.
The Sub-Himalayan Range is the southernmost mountains in the Himalayas, located on the Indian subcontinent. Their average height varies between 600 and 1,200 meters, and are not so high in altitude as compared to other mountain ranges in the Himalaya range. The range spans the modern-day countries of Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan.
Sivatherium is an extinct genus of giraffid that ranged throughout Africa and Eurasia. The species Sivatherium giganteum is, by weight, one of the largest giraffids known, and also one of the largest ruminants of all time.
The geology of Nepal is dominated by the Himalaya, the highest, youngest and a very highly active mountain range. Himalaya is a type locality for the study of on-going continent-continent collision tectonics. The Himalayan arc extends about 2,400 km (1,500 mi) from Nanga Parbat by the Indus River in northern Pakistan eastward to Namche Barwa by the gorge of the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra in eastern Tibet. About 800 km (500 mi) of this extent is in Nepal; the remainder includes Bhutan and parts of Pakistan, India, and China.
The Doon Valley is an unusually wide, long valley within the Sivalik Hills and the Lesser Himalayas, in the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Within the valley lies the city of Dehradun, the winter capital of Uttarakhand state.
Shivalik Fossil Park, also known as the Suketi Fossil Park, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument fossil park in the Sirmaur district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It has a collection of prehistoric vertebrate fossils and skeletons recovered from the upper and middle Siwaliks geological formations of sandstones and clay at Suketi. The Siwalik ranges are located in the outer Himalayas. The park has a display of the fossil finds and an open-air exhibition of six life-sized fiberglass models of extinct mammals in a recreation of the Sivalik Hills environment of the Plio-Pleistocene era. A museum, within the precincts of the park curated and exhibits the fossils. Shivalik is Asia's biggest fossil park. The exhibits in the park are used to generate scientific interest among the public, and facilitate special international studies by visiting research scholars from all over the world.
Manouria is a genus of tortoises in the family Testudinidae. The genus was erected by John Edward Gray in 1854.
Giraffokeryx is an extinct genus of medium-sized giraffids known from the Miocene of the Indian subcontinent and Eurasia. It is distinguished from other giraffids by the four ossicones on its head; one pair in front of the eyes on the anterior aspect of the frontal bone and the other behind the eyes in the frontoparietal region overhanging the temporal fossae. It has a brachydont dentition like in other giraffids and its legs and feet are of medium length. Giraffokeryx is considered monotypic by most authors, in the form of G. punjabiensis, but other species have been assigned to the genus:
The Soanian culture is a prehistoric technological culture from the Siwalik Hills, Pakistan. It is named after the Soan Valley in Pakistan.
Bramatherium is an extinct genus of giraffids that ranged from India to Turkey in Asia. It is closely related to the larger Sivatherium.
The Indian Himalayan Region is the section of the Himalayas within the Republic of India, spanning thirteen Indian states and union territories, namely Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, West Bengal, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh. The region is responsible for providing water to a large part of the Indian subcontinent and contains various flora and fauna.
Hydaspitherium is an extinct genus of giraffid artiodactyls that lived during the Cenozoic era during the Miocene epoch to the Pliocene epoch in Pakistan. Giraffids are represented in the late Miocene epoch of the Siwaliks by large Sivatheriinae such as Sivatherium, Bramatherium, Helladotherium, and Hydaspitherium. Hydaspitherium has been proposed to be synonymous with Bramatherium. H. megacephalum is restricted to the Dhok Pathan Formation in northern Pakistan.
Gavialis browni is an extinct species of the crocodylian genus Gavialis and a close relative of the living gharial Gavialis gangeticus.
Megalochelys is an extinct genus of tortoises that lived from the Miocene to Pleistocene. They are noted for their giant size, the largest known for any tortoise, with a maximum carapace length of over 2 m (6.5 ft) in M. atlas. The genus ranged from western India and Pakistan to as far east as Sulawesi and Timor in Indonesia, though the island specimens likely represent distinct species.
The Himalayan foreland basin is an active collisional foreland basin system in South Asia. Uplift and loading of the Eurasian Plate on to the Indian Plate resulted in the flexure (bending) of the Indian Plate, and the creation of a depression adjacent to the Himalayan mountain belt. This depression was filled with sediment eroded from the Himalaya, that lithified and produced a sedimentary basin ~3 to >7 km deep. The foreland basin spans approximately 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) in length and 450 kilometres (280 mi) in width. From west to east the foreland basin stretches across five countries: Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.
Enhydriodon is an extinct genus of mustelids known from Africa, Pakistan, and India that lived from the late Miocene to the early Pleistocene. It contains nine confirmed species, two debated species, and at least a few other undescribed species from Africa. The genus belongs to the tribe Enhydriodontini in the otter subfamily Lutrinae. Enhydriodon means "otter tooth" in Ancient Greek and is a reference to its dentition rather than to the Enhydra genus, which includes the modern sea otter and its two prehistoric relatives.
Sivapardus is an extinct, little-known genus of feline with only one species assigned to it, Sivapardus punjabiensis. It was described in 1969 by the paleontologist Abu Bakr based on a partial mandible from the Upper Siwaliks in Pakistan; the locality it was found at is estimated to be from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene. S. punjabiensis was a large cat with a short and broad snout that may have lived on open grasslands.
27°46′N82°24′E / 27.767°N 82.400°E
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