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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 2, p. 91.


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II] PREHISTORIC ANTIQ UITIES 9
with the remains of extinct animals. Mr. Hacket was fortunate
:enough to discover a well-made ovate instrument of chipped
quartzite at Bhutra in the NarbadA Valley (about N. lat. 230),
lying in undisturbed post-tertiary gravels containing the bones
of Hi-popotainus natmadicus and other extinct mammals. Mr.
Wynne obtained an agate flake from similar gravels in the
Godavari Valley (G. S., p. 386; pl. xxi, I, 2). Most of the
implements which must, for geological reasons, be classed as
palaeolithic, have been found in laterite deposits, which are,
unfortunately, destitute of fossils. Mr. Bruce Foote has been
very successful in detecting rude implements, usually of quartz-
ite, in beds of detrital laterite--a ferruginous rock overlying
gneiss-in Southern India, and has traced their distribution
over an area comprising eight degrees of latitude (N. lat. ioo
to I8°). They are especially numerous near Madras city, and in
the neighbourhood of Ongole in Guntir District. More system-
atic search will probably reveal them in many other localities.
Implements similar in form and material, but apparently of
neolithic age, have been obtained by several observers in large
numbers among the K6n ravines of South Mirzapur (N. lat.
24° 25').
The distinction between palaeolithic and neolithic antiquities
should be based rather on the nature of the situations in which
they are respectively found than on the style of workmanship,
which is a very unsafe guide. The implements from the Kon
ravines and those with which the great monoliths of Stonehenge
were dressed, although both of neolithic age, are quite as rude
as those found in the Madras laterite, which must undoubtedly
be classed as palaeolithic, and are far inferior to many of the
finely chipped implements from the river gravels of France and
England, to which a very remote antiquity is assigned.
Ossiferous caves, like those which in Western Europe have
yielded innumerable relics of palaeolithic times, seem to be
unknown in India.
Bone implements, so common in Europe, are in India very
rare. Mr. Carlleyle excavated a serrated fish-bone, perhaps an
arrow-head, from Gangetic alluvium in Ghazipur District, lying
below a stratum which contained polished neolithic tools
(A. S. R., xxii, o102).
All that is known at present about palaeolithic man in India
may be summed up in the brief statement that rude stone
implements found in laterite beds and ossiferous gravels south
of parallel 25° of north latitude reveal the existence of a race
of men contemporary with animals now extinct. Even the



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