An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s17.7

v1.c9.s17.7

Iron objects typical of the megaliths include flat celts with two fastening rings, socketed and barbed arrowheads with comparatively long blades, tridents, long swords and lances, spearheads and spikes, wedges, bill-hooks, sickles [6.23], hoes, horse-bits [16.17], etc. Of these flat celts with rings, hoes [6.9] with sockets prepared by turning the flanged ends inside, long swords with or without mid-rib, tridents and horse-bits are the diagnostic types. Most of them are found from Nagpur to Tirunelveli; e.g., celts with two cross-rings are found in the megaliths of JUNAPANI as well as in the urn burials of ADICHANALLUR. Similarly tridents are found both in the caves of Cochin on the w. coast and in the burial urns of Tirunelveli on the e. coast. One may not however imagine that all these types of tools are found everywhere. In fact most of them have only a regional distribution but their regions often across several geographical boundaries—a fact which shows that these items migrated with the people of all sorts to lands they moved in. Hoes, for example, are found in the e. coast sites to the sites in Coimbatore in the w.—a vast region easily divisible in two or three geographical areas.