A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c8.8

c8.8

Microliths have a fairly wide distribution extending, as they do, from Jamālgarhi (Peshawar district) in the NW. Frontier to Sawyerpuram (Tinnevelly district) in the extreme south, and from Karachi in Sind on the west to Serai Kalā in Bihar on the east; and very often they are not truly Mesolithic in stage and overlap with the Neolithic and the Metal Stages. The material employed consists of jasper, agate, cornelian, flint, chert, chalcedony, quartz and other semi-precious stones, while the types include blades, crescents, trapezes, triangles, points, beaked engravers and side-and-end scrapers. These tiny tools must have been attached singly or collectively to a handle for effective use as arrow heads, sickles, etc. ‘In their typology they exhibit a striking similarity with the Western Capsian of the Mesolithic Stage. It may, in all probability, be derived from the western Mesolithic, inasmuch as the Mesolithic has not yet been found in Burma’ (Krishnaswami).