Robert Bruce Foote

Robert Bruce Foote (born 1834—died 1912) was a British geologist and archaeologist, often considered to be the founder of the study of the prehistory of India.

At the age of 24, Foote joined the Indian geological survey, with which he remained for 33 years. After the archaeological survey was established in 1862, he began the first systematic research of human prehistoric remains in India, making the first discovery of hand axes in that country in 1863. Without the benefit of excavation but from surface remains and field observation only, he was able to make a fairly accurate reconstruction of Indian prehistory, naming the major cultural periods Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Iron Age after their European analogues. The Madras Museum, India, purchased his large collection of prehistoric objects in 1903. His Catalogue Raisonné (1914; “Classified List”) and Indian Prehistoric and Protohistoric Artefacts (1916) summarized his years of research and contained his delineation of Indian prehistory.