1887.] PalcBolitliic Finds in South India. 281 



obtained at Joga, a small village at foot of the northern ridge of the 

 Sandur basin, 24 miles west of Bellary. The majority of the specimens 

 have been a good deal worn by rolling. I have had no opportunity of 

 studying the circumstances under which they occur in the gravel fans in 

 question, and merely wish to record the finds. 



The theory has been advanced that the implements of rude Palaeo- 

 lithic type are really the agricultural tools of the people, who, for other 

 domestic or warlike purposes, manufactured the various wholly or par- 

 tially polished implements generally classed as Neolithic. This theory 

 will, however, not fit in with the facts observed in the ISTeolithic settle- 

 ments above described. Nearly all the implements of Palaeolithic type 

 found in the Bellary country consist of jasperyhaematite, only a very 

 few of quartzite. Implements of these materials and of the older type 

 are extremely rare in the various settlements I have searched ; only 

 two or three in all were found to the hundreds and hundreds of specimens 

 of the newer types. It is impossible that the manufacture of haema- 

 titic jasper and quartzite implements should have been carried on to 

 even a very moderate extent without leaving behind piles of splinters 

 and flakes of the red and purple and brown stones of which they were 

 made. These flakes and splinters would be quite as conspicuous on the 

 granitoid hills as the green and black ones left in the preparation of 

 the celts, chisels, and hammers made of greenstone of different kinds. 

 The latter kind of splinters and flakes occur very largely, the former not 

 at all. Furthermore, if the haematite and quartzite implements of tho 

 so-called Palaeolithic type were the agricultural tools of the Neolithic 

 people, how comes it that the former are not found largely in broken or 

 at least used condition around the hills inhabited by their makers ? It 

 is most unlikely that the people left the rich black soil tracts around 

 their strong places uncultivated, and yet, if these were cultivated by 

 the particular form of tools they are assumed to have used, remains 

 of the latter must assuredly be met with here and there near the 

 strong places in question. As a matter of fact they have not been 

 found in such localities, and, from their absence, only one inference 

 seems reasonable, namely, that they were not used as supposed by the 

 Neolithic people, but belonged to another and older race. In none 

 of the different lateritic gravels and other deposits which have yielded 

 typical Palaeolithic implements in the South has the faintest trace of 

 any polished implement of any kind, or of any pottery, however coarse, 

 been found. While the deposits in which the Neolithic remains occur 

 cannot by any possibility be treated as geological formations — they are 

 all of them manifestly accumulations of matter entirely due to direct 

 human agency, — and, geologically speaking, date only from yesterday. 

 36 



