264 R. B. Foote — Note on some recent Neolithic and [No. 3, 



Of Tincertain age, but probably Neolithic, is a carved bone pendant 

 that I obtained in 1883 out of the mud of a very interesting submerged 

 forest at the west end of Valimukkam Bay on the south coast of the 

 iElamnad zamindari. This is the only piece of worked bone that I know of 

 as having been found in South India, excepting some cut bones discovered 

 in the ossiferous caves of Billa Surgam in Karnul District. The 

 pendant was in all probability used as an ear ornament. It is pierced at 

 the thinner end by a small well-drilled hole, and shows four incised lines 

 going clean round it, one a little below the perforation, the other 

 about \" above the round, thicker (lower) end. It was probably well- 

 polished, and, though weathered, is still smooth enough to be rather 

 glossy. I had hoped to find much of value in the Valimukkam sub- 

 merged forest, my first visit of a few minutes duration having given 

 me the bone pendant, but, on re-visiting it last year, I found that the ac- 

 tion of a small river which opens into the bay close by, combined with a 

 heavy surf, had covered over the greater part of the old forest area with 

 a broad sandbank, while the surf had removed a large number of the old 

 tree stumps which had been visible at low tide at the time of my first 

 visit. I had a long tramp about over the peaty mud flat still remaining, 

 but found nothing more than a piece of old pottery too much rolled to 

 show its real character. 



At my first visit to Cape Comorin in 1869, I was struck by the large 

 consumption of shellfish made by the fisher-folk living in the coast 

 villages, speculating that their ancestors might have had similar tastes, 

 and I hoped that an examination of the coast would show the existence of 

 middens, such as proved so wonderfully rich in prehistoric remains on 

 the coasts of Jutland and Schleswig. In 1881, 1882, and 1883, 1 carried 

 out the geological survey of South Travancore, Tinnevelly, and Madura, 

 but unfortunately found no true kitchenmiddens, and fear that none will 

 be found there, for my work, though not absolutely exhaustive, was very 

 close in many places where such remains might have been expected. 

 The remains of shellfish, chiefly of a large species of Mytilus, lie about 

 in great quantities in many places near the coast and, here and there, 

 at places far inland, but they do not occur in sufficiently great accum- 

 ulations to deserve the name of middens, or to hide any prehistoric 

 remains. 



The Neolithic remains I obtained in Tinnevelly (in 1883) were cores 

 and flakes of a chert foreign to that part of the country. They were found 

 at the south end of the red sandhills forming the " teri " west of Sawyer- 

 puram, a well-known station of the Gospel Propagation Society's Mission, 

 eleven miles south-west of Tutikorin. The south end of the teri had been 

 largely denuded by wind action, which had removed the fixed red sand 



