Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.43

c7.43

micro-industries rarely rise above the second-rate. K. R. U. Todd, however, who had an extensive knowledge of Indian microliths particularly in the Bombay area,³¹ came to the interesting conclusion that 'the [west] coastal microliths as a whole appear, from their form, patination and state of preservation, to be definitely of earlier date than the pygmies from the inland sites at Jubbulpore and the Vindhya Hills. Further, they include many forms not recorded in the inland sites, which seem to consist of lunates, blades and cores only.* If this observation is confirmed—and it is consistent with the scarcity of microliths farther east though a crude non-pottery industry has recently been recognized near Durgapur in West Bengal—it may be interpreted as a further pointer towards a western, and therefore south-west Asian or north-east African, source for the Indian series, and will once more illustrate our 'Indian Ocean culture-pool' (see above, p. 58).