PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 719 



those represented by the heirs of its historic civilisation down to forest and 

 depressed tribes little raised above the level of savagery. 



The first question which awaits examination is that of the prehistoric races 

 and their relation to the present population. Unfortunately the materials for 

 this inquiry are still imperfect. The operations of the Archaeological Survey, 

 with the scanty means at its disposal, have rightly been concentrated upon the 

 remains of architecture in stone, which starts from the Buddhist period, and 

 upon the conservation of the splendid buildings which are our inheritance from 

 older ruling powers. The prehistoric materials have been collected by casual 

 workers who were not always careful to record the localities and circumstances 

 of the discovery of their contribution to the local museums. Many links are 

 still wanting, some altogether absent from Indian 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 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 imple- 

 ments 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 

 (he remains of the dead. The epigraphical evidence is enormously later in date 

 than that from Babylon, Assyria, or Egypt; and the Oriental indifference 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, Tndia possesses as yet no seriation of ceramic types such as that 

 devised by Professor Flinders Petrie which has enabled him to arrange the 

 Egyptian tombs on scientific principles, or that which Professor Oscar Montelius 

 has established for the remains of the Bronze Age. Mr. Marshall, the Director 

 of the Archaeological Survey, admits that the Indian museums contain few 

 specimens of metal work the age of which is even approximately known. 



Though the record of the prehistoric culture is imperfect, we can roughly 

 define its successive stages. 



The palaeolithic 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 excited such acute controversy, have up to the present not been 

 discovered ; and so far as is at present known the palaeolithic series from India 

 appeal's 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, quartzite, limestone, or sanclstone 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 discoveries at .Tohore and other sites in that region. Thence 

 he possibly passed into India. The other view represents palaeolithic man as 

 an immigrant from Europe. At any rate, his occupation of parts of southern 

 Tndia war, antecedent 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 palaeolithic 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 popula- 

 tion survives from the neolithic period. Relics of the neolithic, are much more 

 widely spread than those of the palaeolithic age. They extend all over southern 

 Tndia, the Deccan, and the central or Vindhyan range. Up 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 discovered at various sites in 



3 A 3 



