In recent years the importance and meaning of palaeoanthropology have gained a sharper focus. The scope of palaeoanthropological research in India is promising, and this is perhaps one of the few ideal places where the whole spectrum of the study of this discipline can be set forth, both in biological and cultural aspects. The present paper takes it to span the period from the beginning of the process of human evolution during the late Tertiary period to the surviving primitive communities. The relevant biological data in the form of fossil remains have been found only for the earliest stage, pre-Pleistocene. Afterward, up to the end of the Pleistocene, there is no positive evidence of human skeletal remains, which are obtained only from post-Pleistocene onwards. In this subcontinent, the emphasis for a significant stretch of the human evolutionary process is thus almost exclusively on the cultural traits which, however, play a dominant role. An attempt has been made to suggest a tentative framework of bio-cultural evolution in India. In this context, reference has been made also to the relevance of studying the primitive communities of the recent period.