VOL. XV. (2) RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF INDIA I2I 
been traced in relics from interments, it has been estab- 
lished by the study of primitive dwelling sites throughout 
the Deccan. 
As I have already said, the existence of a well-defined 
Bronze Age has not been established in India. As in most 
other places, a Copper Age seems here to have preceded 
that of Bronze, the knowledge of a suitable alloy for the 
softer metal being only gradually acquired. When no 
suitable metal was available, as in India, the Copper Age 
was naturally longer and better-marked. In Europe, on 
the contrary, the facility with which tin was procured 
in England and antimony in Hungary led to the earlier 
disestablishment of copper by bronze. Only one un- 
doubted bronze tool has as yet been identified in India, 
but in South Indian graves some elegant vases of that 
metal, which specialists are inclined to believe to have 
been objects of luxury, imported possibly from Babylonia, 
have been discovered. 
On the other hand, the Copper series is large and 
important. The ore is found largely throughout the 
Peninsula, and the traces of early workings of this metal, 
particularly in Nellore to the south and in Singhbhum and 
Hazaribagh in the east-central hills prove that its extraction 
was an important industry in early times. This is cor- 
roborated by the fact of the persistence to modern times 
of the custom which appropriated this metal to the various 
articles connected with the worship of the gods. Large 
__ hoards of arms and remarkable chisel-shaped copper imple- 
ments, of which the British Museum possesses specimens, 
have been found in various places." 
Gradually the Copper Age was replaced by the Age of 
Iron—the ore being found extensively all through the 
southern portion of the Peninsula, where it is still worked 
in a crude way by the Agariyas and other jungle races, 
1 Read, “ Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age in the B. M.” 67 f. 
J 
