400 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



gotten cult. Possibly, however, the custom among certain of the abo- 

 riginal tribes to make offerings of pottery -images, &c, to the evil 

 spirits which they believe infest their forests and hills, and whom it is 

 considered to be much more important to propitiate than it is to invoke 

 the good spirits, may be a relic of that ancient time. 



Miniature stone models of agricultural implements might very 

 possibly have been offered on the altars of those deities or spirits who 

 were supposed to preside over agriculture, and upon whose favour 

 prosperity was believed to depend. "We need not seek far in other re- 

 ligions for analogous offerings of types for actual things. There is an 

 iron adze-shaped tool in use in Burmah at the present day very similar 

 to the shouldered celts found in that province, which fact throws a 

 doubt on the great antiquity claimed for the latter, since it is simply 

 idle to suppose that these stone adzes can have been used for shaping 

 wood. 



General and Concluding Remarks ox the Geographical 

 Distribution. 



Reviewing the facts given under the several geographical headings 

 above, and the further details in the Table appended, it becomes 

 apparent that it is possible, in the present state of our knowledge, to 

 subdivide India with the adjoining countries on the east and west 

 into three great regions, each characterized by containing a certain 

 class of stone implements. On the accompanying map (Plate 16) I 

 have attempted to distinguish the limits of these regions respectively. 

 It will be observed that there are patches detached from each, to which 

 the geological term outlier may conveniently be applied. 



Throughout this Paper I have not made use of the terms neolithic 

 and paleolithic, convenient as they doubtless are, since they are calcu- 

 lated to convey what, in the case of India at least, I consider to be an 

 erroneous idea of progression. The different forms of implements seem 

 to be rather indices of race than of time. This opinion may appear to 

 be unorthodox, and the picture of the rude manufacturer of the chipped 

 quartzite being the progenitor of the artist who, in the progress of 

 time, evolves the art of making highly polished celts out of the hardest 

 materials, though no doubt an attractive one does not seem to fit in 

 with the facts at our disposal. Of course in certain localities such an 

 advance in art may have taken place ; but the wide extent of country 

 we are dealing with, and the magnitude of the data, render it possible 

 to ignore such local cases, supposing them to exist, without vitiating 

 the main results and conclusions. 



It would be improper to omit all reference to the influence which 

 the geological structure of the three great regions respectively may 

 have had in determining the form and characters of the implements. 

 It is clear that where chert, agate, or some similar forms of quartz do 

 not occur naturally, we are not likely to find flakes and cores in 

 abundance. And, therefore, a certain limit has been placed by ex- 



