Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.52

c7.52

Finally, something must be said about the ground or polished stone axes and adzes which are amongst the most characteristic stone artifacts of India. In some regions of the Deccan or the Peninsula they can be picked up almost casually on a country walk. The sequel normally is that their find-spot is quickly forgotten, and the museums of India and Great Britain contain innumerable unidentified examples. Something like eighty localities can, however, be put on the map, and it is clear that, apart from a thin scatter in the north-west (sometimes out of context), the distribution lies south-east of a line drawn from Bombay to Kanpur (Cawnpore) on the middle Ganges and extends at least as far south as the Kāverī river. In other words, the axes belong essentially to eastern and southern India, but are absent from the extreme south and from Ceylon.