1887.] Paleolithic Finds in South India. 273 



origin of this much debated mound would of course be to cut a section 

 through it, a work which ought to be executed by the Archaeological 

 Survey. The mound is certainly not the product of one huge burning, 

 the cinder occurring in distinct layers 2' — 4' thick with thin layers of 

 made ground between them. It was from these that the celts and 

 various mealing-stones and corn-crushers I found there were washed 

 down by action of rain. I noticed no other traces of residence, nor any 

 at all of a manufacture of celts. I cannot help inclining to the holocaust 

 theory, for, in other cases (notably at the important settlement on Kuri 

 Kuppi hill and at the quadrangular cinder camp west of Sanawaspura 61 

 miles N. by E. of Bellary), the number of mealing-stones and corn- 

 crushers was very large, many of them being imbedded in the cindery 

 mass. Bones of animals, too, mostly bovine, occur frequently. Frag- 

 ments of pottery too are very numerous. Many of the marrow bones 

 had been broken as if to extract the marrow. I did not notice a single 

 human bone in any one case, or any evidence pointing to a ceremonial 

 cremation. 



The cinder mounds at Sanawaspur, and the larger of the two west 

 of Halakundi and near the foot of the Copper Mountain, form quadran- 

 gles about sixty yards square by external measurement, the sides 

 making a low breastwork much trodden down and cut by rain action. 

 I do not think they exceed 5 feet in height above the general level, for 

 I noticed no places that I could not overlook. 



Except in the absence of the signs of manufacture of implements, 

 these two quadrangular camp-like piles of cinder showed much the 

 same style of things as occurred on many of the larger ash-covered 

 terraces in the typical hill settlements. Celts and chisels were proba- 

 bly less numerous in the camps than on the hill terraces, but mealing- 

 stones and corn-crushers are quite as common, and broken pottery is 

 not rare. At the Sanawaspuram camp, I obtained fragments of two 

 small bottle-shaped earthenware vessels. 



At the North Hill, Bellary, and several other settlements, I found 

 numerous lumps of haematite which did not appear to have been collected 

 for conversion into any implement, for which purpose they were evidently 

 unfit either from their small size or softness, and with them, here and 

 there, were pieces of iron slag, which may not improbably be traces of the 

 local manufacture of iron. Similar indications of an iron-smelting in- 

 dustry were found in considerable quantity by my friend Mr. C. Cardew, 

 Superintendent, Locomotive Department, Bellary- Kistna State Railway, 

 in the great Neolithic settlement which formerly existed on the high 

 ground south-west of the Guntakal Railway junction. Strongly con- 

 firmative of the existence of the iron industry at Bellary is to my ap- 

 35 



