10S Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal [April, 1914. 



had the privilege of examining last year. They were both 

 discovered by the late Mr R. Brace Foote — the first near Hosh- 

 alli, Kudligi Taluq, Bellary district; it is a broad, round-faced 

 hammer made of pink granite. The round face is much broader 

 than the butt end, and there is a very distinct constriction 

 round the middle of the hammer to enable it to be attached 

 to a haft or withy. The specimen is unfinished, and was evi- 

 dently rejected by its maker owing to a false blow which 

 smashed a large piece out of the edge of the striking face. The 

 second specimen was found on an old copper smelting site at 

 Rupavati, fifteen miles south-east by south of Damnaga, 

 Baroda. In its general shape it is very near the former one, but 

 it has been completely finished and polished, though after- 

 wards greatly injured by much usage. The deep and highly 

 polished belt groove remains nearly entire, and shows that 

 great care must have been taken in its manufacture. It is 

 fashioned from a grey gabbro. 



In spite of the extended list of this type of belted 

 hammerstones now brought forward, the fact remains that such 

 implements are of the greatest rarity, and are only very occa- 

 sionally found amongst the thousands of other Neolithic 

 artifacts in which certain parts of the Indian Empire abound. 

 A commoner type of hammerstone from the United and Cen- 

 tral Provinces and from Central India, is not grooved at all, 

 though often covered with circular indentations, which may 

 perhaps have served for holding the weapon in the hand. 



The specimens from Assam belong to an entirely different 

 type and are well worthy of a description here. There are 

 6 specimens in all, 5 of which are made from a fine, close-grained, 

 greyish, bluish or reddish-grey quartzite; one from a dark, 

 fine-grained, schistose diorite. Each specimen has been formed 

 by splitting an elongated, ovoid, water- worn pebble into two 

 pieces, across its transverse diameter, and then grinding down 

 the fractured end until it assumed a smooth, slightly convex 

 surface. The groove or belt is cut into the implement roughly 

 two-thirds of the distance between the face and the pebble butt. 

 In each case it is broad and well marked though not deep. In 

 two of the quartzite hammers the groove forms a complete 

 ring around the stone; in the other three, it is not con- 

 tinued round the edge which evidently faced the hand when 

 the implement was held in its withy. In the case of the dio- 

 rite hammer the belt is continued around one face and two 

 edges but not around the other side. The largest specimen 

 measures approximately 10 cms. long by 7 broad by 5 thick ; 

 The smallest, 6' 5 cms. long by 6 broad by 3 thick. The others 

 are intermediate in size though usually somewhat thinner 

 than the largest one. ■The specimens were found along with 

 others by Mr. W. Penny, a tea-planter of Bishnath, Tezpur 



district, Assam, in digging a ditch on his estate. They reached 



