1887.] PalceolUMc Finds in South India. 263 



three distinct provinces, which met and slightly overlapped each other 

 in Central India. Here and there, it was true, a few implements 

 characteristic of one province occurred well within the limits of another, 

 but such an occurrence was to be treated as what is geologically termed 

 an '' outlier ", and held not to affect the general validity of the theory. 

 Mr. Ball rejected the terms Neolithic and Palaeolithic for India as con- 

 veying erroneous ideas of progression. He says in the paper referred 

 to, " The different forms of implements seem to be rather indices of 

 race than time." The early inhabitants of South India, according to this 

 theory, attained only to a much lower platform of civilization than did 

 those of N'orth-eastern India.* While passing his paper through the 

 press, Mr. Ball became acquainted with the collection of Shevaroy hills 

 celts in the British Museum, which seems to have staggered him some- 

 what, but he still stuck to his theory and merely added a note in the 

 press to this effect : " If the locality " (the Shevaroy hills) " is authentic, 

 we have another instance of an outlier. Such exceptions to the main 

 features of distribution will possibly be from time to time discovered, 

 but they must become very numerous before they can be considered to 

 outweigh the facts upon which the general conclusions in this paper 

 have been founded." 



Mr. Ball's paper remained unknown to me for more than six years 

 after its publication, else I should have written at once to show how 

 ill-founded it was, in view even of the knowledge of Neolithic remains 

 then existing. When I did become acquainted with it, rather more 

 than three years ago, I was making almost daily fresh discoveries of 

 Neolithic remains in the South, and had not time to write a paper in 

 reply, but mentioned it in a letter to Dr. John Evans, F. R. S., the 

 greatest living authority on stone implements, and he communicated 

 this letter and some others about my new finds to the Anthropological 

 Society, in whose Journal for August 1886 an abstract of them was 

 published. 



§ 5. The Shevaroy Hill celts constituted the earliest Neolithic 

 find made south of the latitude of Madras, and twelve years elapsed 

 before any further discoveries were made in that direction. In 1878, I 

 found the cutting half of a small celt at Uta Kovil four miles north-east 

 from Arrizur in Trichinopoly District. Tanjore District yielded no 

 Neolithic implements, and Madura District was also very unprolific, the 

 only specimens found being two chert cores and a chert flake with a 

 serrated edge formed by 7 consecutive small notches in close apposition. 

 These were found on the surface of gravels of very recent formation. 



* The question of the distiiictiiess of the two stone ages will be referred to 

 again later. 



