Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.59

c7.59

Other evidence supports the active survival of pointed-butt or comparable axes into the latter half of the 1st millennium B.C.: for example, at Sonepur in the Gaya district of Bihār they occurred with good Northern Black Polished Ware (p. 30) and iron in a stratified series.⁴⁰ But the occasional presence of an isolated stone axe (for example, at Taxila) in a late occupation is not necessarily significant chronologically or geographically, since these distinctive objects are liable to have been picked up as curiosities or even used for cult-purposes at any period down to the present day. They can still be seen in South India as offerings or symbols at village shrines. Only when they are present in quantity or are associated with factory-flakes or with other objects of the same cultural stage can they fairly be regarded as utile tools. Whilst they may well have survived in this capacity in backwaters of the Deccan or the Peninsula to an appreciably later date, there is at present no clear evidence of their fabrication after the end of the 3rd century B.C. or thereabouts.