50 
A. Rea— Vre-historic Burial-places in Southern India. [No. 
like the Hindus, it would be an anomaly to find one caste practising a 
plurality of methods in the disposal of its dead. The Pallavas probably 
erected one or more classes of megaliths or other tombs in common with 
other races of the time. They could not have used all the different 
varieties we find existing. To ascertain which they really did use, we 
must find which forms are the commonest around the remains of the 
principal of their settlements. It has been suggested, originally I think 
by Fergusson, that the distribution of the dolmens might be due to the 
wanderings of a primeval tribe over the different parts of the globe. It 
is to be feared, however, that any such primeval remains must not be 
looked for on the present surface of the earth, but in one or more of the 
strata at some distance below it. The present level cannot by any pos¬ 
sibility be such as was the surface in primeval times, else we must as- 
sume, that if primeval remains are now found on the earth’s present 
surface, high above the strata which, each successively, formed the sur¬ 
face in early times, then the earth in those days must have been unin¬ 
habited ; but, I think this is hardly asserted. The dolmens now seen 
cannot be much more than a thousand years old, else they would have 
been silted up long ere this. They cannot therefore be such as were 
erected by primeval tribes, though it is quite possible they may be the 
descendants or copies of dolmens which really were erected in such early 
times, and which may now exist with other fossilized remains of the 
time at some considerable depth underground. This might be expected ; 
for, from the very earliest times, man must have had a reverence for hi3 
dead, and taken steps to mark the spot of its burial by the erection of 
some such rude monuments. Fergusson, in his Rude Stone Monuments 
has treated this part of the subject very clearly, going into the earliest 
forms of sepulture practised by primitive tribes, and showing how they 
developed under the effects of a more advanced civilization. 
At Pallavaram, the stone circles occupy a position by themselves on 
the tops and sides of the hills, whereas the oblong and round earthen 
tombs stand on the sloping ground around and at some distance from 
the base; and all close to or on the surface. As the earthenware tombs 
are found scattered over one and the same piece of ground, they must 
have been used by one race, and by one section of it. They have all, 
certainly at one time, had high lids or covers, and had they been sunk 
in the earth till these were below the surface,—as the tops are now all 
away, and the rims of the tombs themselves are now above or on the 
surface of the ground—it would lead to the inference that the ground 
line in those days had been from three to four feet higher than it is now- 
a-days. Had there been no mounds, it would require to have been so, 
to cover the high semi-globular lids of the round tombs. This of course 
