1S79.] in Central India. 3 



barrows. Further south again, at a distance of about half a mile, on the 

 other side of the village, is a third group. The position is somewhat low 

 and damp, the ground sloping towards the small stream which runs past 

 the village of Junapani. The remains discovered by Mr. Hanna were dug 

 out from the barrows of this group, and were found in a less perfect state 

 of preservation than the iron implements from the tumuli situated further 

 up on higher ground on the hill side. A fourth and still smaller group, 

 situated further north, was examined by Mr. Henry Dangerfield. For several 

 miles round, similar collections of barrows, which have not yet been noted or 

 explored, are to be seen festooning with their dark funereal boulders the 

 slopes of the low trap hills which extend far south towards the Wurdah river. 

 A rough plan of the Junapani circles accompanies this paper ; see 

 Plate I. 



In all these groups the tumuli are of the same type, consisting of circular 

 mounds of earth of various sizes, surrounded by single and, in some instances, 

 by double rows of trap boulders, selected from the masses with which the 

 hill- side is strewn and the presence of which in great numbers, ready to hand, 

 doubtless suggested the locality as a burial-place to the tribes so many of 

 whose members lie here entombed. The diameter of the circles varies from 

 20 feet to 56 feet, the tomb being perhaps of large or inferior dimensions 

 according to the consideration of the person buried. No barrow of the 

 groups as yet examined by me exceeds 56 feet in diameter ; and 56 feet 

 seems to have been a favourite size, as each group contains several tumuli 

 of exactly these dimensions. 



The trying climate of Central India, with its prolonged scorching heat, 

 followed by drenching rain, so destructive to every sort of masonry build- 

 ing, has told with great severity upon even these solid masses of trap rock. 

 They are all more or less wrinkled by age, and in some cases the stone has 

 been split and its outer coating stripped off by the action of heat and 

 damp, and it is doubtful whether the boulders that have thus suffered now 

 retain their original form. There is thus some difficulty in determining 

 whether they have been artificially shaped. It would appear from the 

 resemblance borne by most of the blocks, ranged round the tumuli, to tha 

 still undisturbed masses with which nature has strewn the hill side, that, in 

 most cases, the stones were not dressed, but that boulders of about the same 

 size, bearing the nearest resemblance to oblong cubes, were chosen from 

 the masses on the hill side and rolled down to the site of the tumulus, and 

 then ranged side by side in their natural state round the circular mound of 

 earth raised over the grave. Each circle, however, generally contains two 

 or three stones, larger than their neighbours, which from the comparative 

 regularity of shape would appear to have been artificially dressed. It is on 

 these selected stones that the " cup-marks," resembling those found on. 



