90 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
Il].—Tue Stone Toots oF THE HI.s. 
Stone tools are now known to exist in enormous numbers 
in Ceylon. I divide them into two series : The Hill series and 
the Lowland series. This division is not a strictly natural one, 
but it is convenient. Previous authors have dealt chiefly 
with the Hill series. The artefacts found upon the highlands 
of the Kandyan Provinces are generally supposed to be of 
Neolithic date. They comprise scrapers (round, hollow, 
irregular, and straight), small blades, chisels, planes, arrow- 
heads, points and borers, flakes, cores and hammer-stones, &c. 
Large tools are conspicuous by their absence. 
Nearly all of them are made from crystalline quartz, but 
occasionally one comes across a chert implement.* It is a 
curious fact that while chert tools are remarkably rare in the 
hills, flakes and broken fragments of this material occur in 
great abundance on certain sites. No doubt this fact is not 
without significance, but no one has yet ascertained its 
meaning. 
Over and above these ordinary tools, Mr. C. Hartley has of 
late years discovered large numbers of highly specialized 
implements, which, on account of their small size and the 
fineness of their workmanship, are generally known as Pigmies. 
The term refers, of course, to the tools alone, and not to the 
people who made them. 
This discovery is one of extreme interest and importance, 
for Pigmies are known to represent a particular culture-stage 
in the history of man, obtaining either at the close of the 
older (Paleolithic) or at the beginning of the newer (Neolithic) 
Stone Age. Authorities are inclined to differ on this point. 
I need not detail to you the features of these implements, 
as they have already been figured and described in the pages 
of “‘ Spolia Zeylanica.”’+ Their uses are not certainly known, 


* Mr. James Parsons, the late Principal Mineral Surveyor, in his 
paper on ‘‘ The modes of occurrence of Quartz in Ceylon ”’ (“* Spolia 
Zeylanica,”’ Vol. V., Part XX., 1908, pp. 171-177), gives an interesting 
account of the materials used by stonesage peoples of this country in 
the manufacture of their tools. Collectors should consult this. 
+ Hartley, C.: ‘‘ On the occurrence of Pigmy Implements in Ceylon 
(** Spolia Zeylanica,’’? Vol. X., Part XXXVI., 1914, pp. 54-67). 
