456 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



as to what that intention was. All varieties of .small implements were 

 found by Mr. Carlyle in the eaves and rock-shelters among - the Vindhya 

 hills in places difficult of access and unknown to the ordinary traveler. 

 Some of them were found in the alluvium at the mouth of the cave, 

 where they had been washed out and were caught in slight ledges of 

 the rock, after the fashion of washed gold in the rocking-cradle. Within 

 the caves they were found in the upper strata, while immediately be- 

 neath, but separated from them, were larger implements, different in 

 size, kind, and style, and formed of indurated sandstone, hematite and 

 chert. Crescent implements were found in grave mounds in the neigh- 

 borhood of the caves, leading one to suppose that the inhabitants of 

 the eaves who made these implements built the mounds and here 

 buried their dead. Mr. Carlyle, while agreeing that these implements 

 belonged to the neolithic period, has found those belonging to the 

 paleolithic period in the same locality, and believes that the evidence 

 of the archaeology of the district shows, contrary to the opinion held 

 in regard to Western Europe, that there was no such hiatus between 

 the paleolithic and neolithic periods, and that the series of implements 

 run from one period to the other, their difference being accounted for 

 by the general progress from the lower to the higher civilization. To 

 this period of transition, Mr. Carlyle has given the name of "mezo- 

 lithic." 



It is not easy to determine the purpose of these small implements, 

 especially the crescent, trapezoid, and scalene triangular, which have 

 neither known prototype nor antetype. Some of the triangular and 

 long-pointed ones might have served as arrow-heads. If they had been 

 found on the California coast, they would, without doubt, have been 

 thus attributed ; but they are entirely different from any recognized 

 arrow-heads in the Western Hemisphere. It has been suggested that 

 they, or some of their kindred, might have been used for tattooing, 

 but there is nothing more to favor this than its possibility and our ig- 

 norance of their real purpose. Some of the smaller and straigkter 

 objects might have served as needles or perforators. A possible use 

 akin to that of tattooing might have been that of the medicine man 

 for bleeding or scarifying. One can scarcely understand any use possi- 

 ble which should have required the infinite number of these implements 

 or confined them to the one general locality. 



There surely is not enough distinctiveness in these implements to 

 induce the belief that they form a racial distinction. 



Mr. Carlyle reports that on the walls of some of the caves at Morahua 

 Pahar there were rude drawings of men and animals painted in red. 

 They were of the usual character seen in pictographs of savage races, 

 and the interest is increased by the fact that in these caves, and associ- 

 ated with these implements, rude pottery was found, roughly orna- 

 mented by incised marks which might have been made by some of these 

 flakes. " These pieces of pottery," says Mr. Carlyle, "were rubbed 



