118 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1905 
others, again, in a shelf cut in the side of the grave. Some 
merely deposit their dead in the jungle to be devoured by 
wild beasts: some bury the remains naked: some use 
a shroud. Some erect platforms on which the body is 
allowed to decay: others disinter the bones after corrup- 
tion has done its work, and remove them to a tribal 
or family ossuary.* 
India, then, with its survivals of archaic death customs, 
and its varied methods of disposing of the remains, 
presents a particularly interesting field for enquiry. While 
death customs, as they exist at present, have been pretty 
thoroughly explored, little has been done as yet to collect 
and bring into order the information which it so lavishly 
furnishes on the subject of Rude Stone Monuments. 
Fergusson was probably right when he asserted that such 
remains were more numerous in India than in any other 
part of the world. But, up to the present time, the facts 
connected with this important subject have lain scattered 
through a vast literature, consisting of official reports, 
isolated memoirs, and the publications of learned societies. 
It is only quite recently that a most valuable contribution 
to the investigation of this subject as a whole has been 
made by my friend, Mr V. A. Smith, who has prepared an 
admirable summary of the information we possess on pre- 
historic India which (with a very useful bibliography) will 
appear in the forthcoming edition of the “Imperial 
Gazetteer.” Mr Smith, for the preparation of this paper, 
kindly placed all his original notes at my disposal, and, 
needless to say, I am much indebted to them. 
The archeologists of Europe have mapped out the 
history of pre-historic man in that part of the world into 
four great periods: the Paleolithic, of rude stone imple- 
ments ; the Neolithic, of polished stone-implements: the 
1 Vide W. Crooke, “ Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, with special reference 
to India ”—Journal Anthropological Institute, xxix. (1889), p. 271 ef. seg. 
