122 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1905 
their present methods probably reproducing those of the 
period when the metal first came into use. 
For the examination of the Indian Rude Stone Monu- 
ments, it would be of great interest to consider the 
information which would enable us to fix approximate 
dates for the sequence of these periods of early man 
in India. But at present no such evidence is forthcoming. 
Prof. Ridgeway fixes the period in Europe of transition 
from bronze to iron at from 850 to 600 B.C. Whether 
this change occurred earlier or later in India we have 
at present no means of determining. There are constant 
references in the Rigveda to a metal called ayas, which in 
some places seems to be merely a generic name for 
“metal.” In the Atharva-veda it is referred to as “ dark” 
and ‘‘red,” which, as Prof. Macdonell remarks, ‘“‘ seems to 
indicate that the distinction between iron and copper or 
bronze had only recently been drawn.” He goes on 
to say that: ‘It is, moreover, well known that in the 
progress of civilization the use of bronze always precedes 
that of iron. Yet it would be rash to assert that iron was 
altogether unknown even to the earlier Vedic age.”* 
With the Iron Age we come to the era of the Rude 
Stone Monuments. No relics discovered in connexion 
with interments associated with them warrant us in tracing 
them to an earlier period. 7 
It may be well first to define the terms in use. The 
earliest form is probably the mound or tumulus, which 
when constructed of stone we usually call a cairn. But 
some confusion has been caused by Mr Breeks, one of the 
best of our working archeologists, extending the term 
“cairn” to “a circular enclosure formed either by a rough 
stone wall, or heap, or by single stones.”* This is a form 
1 Macdonell, “ History of Sanskrit Literature,” p. 151. The question is discussed at 
length by Schrader, “ Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples,” E. T. F. B. Jevons, 
pp- 157 ff. “pitas 
2 “Primitive Tribes of the Nilagiris,” p. 72. 
