11 
1879.] H. Bivett-Carnac '—Prehistoric Remains in Central India. 
Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Boyal Asiatic Society (Yol. Ill, Pt. 2, 
p. 179, and IV, p. 380,) and in the Transactions of the Boyal Irish Acade¬ 
my (Yol. XXIV, Antiquities, p. 329.) He found cists containing skeletons, 
some of them headless, and thus furnished the necessary link between the 
stone circles of Nagpur, in which enclosed chambers are wanting and the 
bones appear to have decayed, and the burial-places of the Scythian tribes. 
The distribution of these monuments in India is so peculiar and re¬ 
stricted, that they are very probably the tombs of an immigrant race, and 
not of an aboriginal population. The so-called aboriginal tribes of the 
country, such as the Gonds, appear, as a rule, to have no knowledge of the 
remains. If the curious articles supposed by Mr. Bivett-Carnac to be a 
snaffle bit and stirrups are really what he thinks them to be, they would 
furnish another connecting link between the circle-building race and the 
tribes of Central Asia, who have been horsemen from time immemorial, 
whilst none of the wilder tribes of the Indian peninsula use horses, nor is 
it probable that the animal is indigenous to the country, the climate of 
most parts of India being ill-suited for horse-breeding. At the. same time 
it must not be considered as conclusively proved that these pieces of iion 
are really a bit and stirrups, although the view is probable, especially in the 
case of the bit. 
There is one very striking peculiarity to which I think Mr. Bivett- 
Carnac has not called attention, but which deserves notice. Mr. Bivett-Carnac 
has remarked the numerous points in which these circles and the markings 
upon them shew a connexion with similar remains in Europe. There is, how¬ 
ever, one very remarkable distinction. In Europe all such stone monuments 
as these are classed in the bronze age, the implements of human manufacture 
found associated being chiefly or entirely of bronze. The occurrence of 
iron implements in so many cases in India may be due to either of two 
causes, to the later age of the Indian remains, or to the circumstance that 
the use of iron was known earlier in India than in Europe. From the 
extreme paucity of bronze and copper implements in India, it is not impro¬ 
bable that the interval between the time when smoothed' stone implements 
were employed and the discovery of iron was shorter in. this country than 
in Europe, and the relative abundance of iron in Indian tombs may very 
possibly indicate that the use of the metal was known in India at an earlier 
period than in Europe. 
