SeptemIser 29, 1910] 



NATURE 



417 



soil ; others which systematic search will doubtless supply. 

 We can realise what the position of prehistoric archaeology 

 in Europe would be if the series of Neolithic barrows, 

 the bone carvings of the cave-dwellers, the relics from 

 kitchen-middens and lake dwellings were absent. The 

 caves of central India, it is true, have supplied stone 

 implements and some rude rock paintings. But the secrets 

 of successive hordes of invaders from the north, their forts 

 and dwellings, lie deep in the alluvium, or are still covered 

 by shapeless mounds. Tropical heat and torrential rain, 

 the ravages of treasure-hunters, the practice of cremation 

 have destroyed much of the remains of the dead. Th- 

 epigraphical evidence is enormously later in date than thai 

 from Babylon, .Assyria, or Egypt ; and the oriental indiffer- 

 ence to the past and the growth of a sacred literature 

 written to subserve the interests of a priestly class weaken 

 the value of the historical record. 



Further, India possesses as yet no seriation of ceramic 

 types such as that devised by Prof. Flinders Petrie which 

 has enabled him to arrange the Egyptian tombs on scientific 

 principles, or that which Prof. Oscar Montelius has estab- 

 lished for the remains of the Bronze Age. Mr. Marshall, 

 the Director of the .Archsological Survey, admits that the 

 Indian museums contain few specimens of metal work the 

 age of which is even appro.ximately known. 



Though the record of the prehistoric culture is imperfect, 

 we can roughly define its successive stages. 



The palteolithic implements have been studied by Mr. 

 A. C. Logan, whose work is useful if only to show the 

 complexity of the problem. Those found in the laterite 

 deposits belong to the later Pleistocene period, and display 

 a technique similar to that of the river-drift series from 

 western Europe. The Eoliths, which have e.xcited such 

 acute controversy, have up to the present not been dis- 

 covered ; and so far as is at present known the palaeolithic 

 series from India appears to be of later date than the 

 ^European. Palaeolithic man seems to have occupied the 

 eastern coast of the peninsula, whence he migrated inland, 

 using in turn quartzose, chert, quartzitc, limestone, 01 

 sandstone for his weapons ; that is to say, he seems not to 

 have inhabited those districts which at a later time were 

 seats of neolithic culture. Early man, according to what is 

 perhaps the most reasonable theory, was first specialised in 

 Malaysia, and his northward route is marked by dis- 

 coveries at Johore and other sites in that region. Thence 

 he possibly passed into India. The other view represents 

 palajolithic man as an immigrant from Europe. At any 

 rate, his occupation of parts of southern India was ante- 

 cedent to the action of those forces which produced its 

 present form, ere the great rivers had excavated their 

 present channels, and prior to the deposition of the masses 

 of alluvium and gravel which cover the implements which 

 are the only evidence of his existence. 



Between the paljeolithic and the neolithic races there is a 

 great geological and cultural gap ; and no attempt to 

 bridge it has been made except by the suggestion that the 

 missing links may be found in the cave deposits when they 

 undergo examination. 



There is reason, however, to believe that the neolithic 

 and the Iron Age cultures were continuous, and that an 

 important element in the present population survives from 

 the neolithic period. Relics of the neolithic are much more 

 widely spread than those of the paloeolitiiic age. They 

 extend all over southern India, the Deccan, and the central 

 or \'indhyan range. L'p to the present they are scanty in 

 the Punjab and Bengal ; but this may be due to failure to 

 discover or identify them. Mr. Bruce Foote has discoverKi 

 at various sites in the south factories of neolithic impie- 

 raents associated with wheel-made pottery of a fairly 

 advanced type, showing that the Stone .Age has survived 

 side by side with that of metal down to comparatively 

 recent times. The \'eddas of Ceylon, the Andamanese, and 

 various tribes on the north-east frontier, in central and 

 southern India, are, or were up to quite recent times, in 

 the Age of Stone. In fact, w'hen we speak of ages of stone 

 or metal we must not regard them as representing division 

 of time but generally continuous phases of culture. 



There is no trustworthy_ evidence for the existence of an 

 Age of Bronze. The single fine implement of this metal 

 which has been discovered is probably, like the artistic 

 vessels from the N'ilgiri interments, of foreign origin ; and 

 other implements of a less defined type seem to be the 

 NO. 2135, VOL. 84] 



result of imperfect metallurgy. This is not the place to 

 discuss the problem of the origin and diffusion of bronze. 

 Babylon, Asia Minor, and China have each been supposed 

 to be a centre of distribution. The Egyptian specimen 

 attributed to the third dynasty, say before the fourth 

 millennium B.C., is believed by Prof. Petrie to be the result 

 of a chance alloy ; but the metal certainly appears in Egypt 

 about 1600 B.C., and it is believed to have originated in 

 central Europe, where the Zinnwald of Saxony or the 

 Bohemian mines provided a supply of tin. The absence of 

 a Bronze .Age in India has been explained by the scarcity 

 of tin and the impossibility of procuring it from its chief 

 source in the Malay-Burmaii region, where the mines do 

 not seem to have been worked in ancient times. But 

 another view deserves consideration. Prof. Ridgeway has 

 shown that all the sites where native iron is smelted are 

 those where carboniferous strata and ironstone have been 

 heated by eruptions of basalt ; and iron was thus produced 

 by the natural reduction of the ore. In Africa as well fs 

 India the absence of the Bron/e .Age seems to be due to 

 the abundant supplies of iron ores which could be worked 

 by processes simpler than those required in the case of 

 bronze. In India iron may have been independently dis- 

 covered towards the close of the neolithic period, and iron 

 may have displaced copper without the intervention of 

 bronze. 



However this may be, the Copper .Age in India, which 

 has been carefully studied by Mr. V. .A. Smith, is of great 

 importance. Implements of this metal in the form of flat 

 and bar celts, swords, daggers, harpoon, spear, and arrow- 

 heads, with ornaments and a strange figure probably 

 human, have been found at numerous sites in northern 

 India. In western Europe, according to Dr. Munro, the 

 Copper .Age was of short duration ; but Mr. Smith believes 

 that in India the variety of types indicates a long period of 

 development. 



No mention of iron occurs in the Rig-veda ; but it appears 

 in the Atharvan, which cannot be dated much later than 

 1000 B.C. It is now recognised that there is a still obscure 

 stratum of Babylonian influence underlying the Aryan 

 culture ; and if, as is generally supposed, the manufactjre 

 of iron was established by the Chalybes at the head-wateis 

 of the Euphrates, who passed it down the delta, its use 

 may have spread thence among the Indo-.Aryans. It cer- 

 tainly appears late in the south Indian dolmen period; and 

 we have the alternatives of believing that it was introduced 

 there by the Dravidian trade with the Persian Gulf, which 

 certainly arose before the seventh century before Christ, cr 

 that it was independently discovered by the Dravidians who 

 still extract it in a rude way from the native ores. 



The great series of dolmens, circles, and kistvaens which 

 cover the hills and plateaux of the Deccan and the region 

 to the south seem to belong to the Iron .Age. Whether the 

 construction of these monuments was due to the migration 

 of the dolmen-building race from northern Africa, or 

 whether the builders were a local people utilising the 

 material on the spot must remain uncertain. The excava- 

 tions conducted by Mr. Breeks and others disclose tall jars, 

 many-storeyed cylinders of varying diameter, with round or 

 conical bases, fashioned to rest on pottery ring-stands, like 

 the classical amphorae, or to be imbedded in softer soil. 

 The lids of these vessels are ornamented with rude, 

 grotesque figures of men, animals, or more rarely inanimate 

 objects, depicting the arms, dress, ornaments, and domesti- 

 cated fauna of the period. It has been suspected that these 

 figurines may be of a date earlier than the implements of 

 iron with which they are associated, and that they were 

 deposited with the dead in a spirit of religious conservatism. 

 At any rate, the costumes and arms represented on the 

 older pottery present no resemblance to those depicted on 

 the later series of dolmens and kistvaens. The pottery also 

 seems to belong to different periods, the larger jars being 

 of a later date than the true funereal urns which are found 

 at a lower level, and contain a few cremated bones, gold 

 ornaments, bronze and iron rings, with beads of glass or 

 agate. These people clearly regarded bronze as an article 

 of luxury, as it appears in the form of ornaments or in the 

 series of splendid vases preserved in the Madras museum. 

 It is difficult to suppose that these were of local origin ; 

 more probably thev were imported in the course of trade 

 along the western coast or from more distant regions. 



Another and equally remarkable phase of culture, com- 



