Fresh excavations, new dating techniques and ever-growing conceptual frameworks since 1950 have greatly reshaped our perspective on Prehistory and Protohistory of the Indian subcontinent. This monograph, which is primarily aimed to serve as a starter for the under-graduate and post-graduate students, presents, in a concise but comprehensive manner, a syncretic view of the latest information on various aspects such as tools and technologies, settlement and subsistence patterns, ecological background and distributional configuration in respect of the Stone Age and the Chalcolithic Cultures outside the Harappan Zone. The Megalithic Cultures of peninsular India and the Deccan too find a place in the book. A archaeology as well as of the terms used frequently in -drawings and explanatory notes on individual sites add further Value to the text.