Bhimbetka is a hill in central India with more than 200 caves and rockshelters, preserving evidence from across a long historical and prehistoric period. One of the areas with an extensive history of archaeological investigation is Bhimbetka rockshelter III, with an Acheulean industry that is currently estimated around 106,000 years, making it one of the most recent Acheulean occurrences in Asia.

It is not clear what hominin populations were responsible for the stone industries of India and South Asia more broadly at this time; on grounds of comparisons with living people’s DNA one hypothesis is that this was a Denisovan population.

Image: solarisgirl (Wikipedia)