An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s6.t6.7

v1.c9.s6.t6.7

The blade industry consists of tools made of close fine-grained siliceous stones like chert, agate, jasper, chalcedony and in lesser frequency opal and quartz. Blades including backed and serrated varieties predominate. Some do show secondary working and marks of use. From the blade blanks other tools like lunates, points, crescents, trapezes, etc., were produced and were used singly or as a composite tool, e.g. sickle, after hafting. These tools are so simple yet versatile that they could be used either singly or in combination as arrow-heads, barbs, borers, sickles, etc., for multiple purposes. Animal bones, especially distal ends and long bones, were shaped into points, chisels, axe-heads, scrapers, etc., as are found at PIKLIHAL, HALAKUNDI, TEKKALAKOTTA, PALAVOY, etc., and used on soft materials. Edge-ground potsherds were used as scrapers. Besides a bronze finger ring from BRAHMAGIRI, a chisel from PIKLIHAL, two miniature axes—one double-edged and the other flat—and a fish hook from HALLUR and two flat rectangular axes from TEKKALAKOTTA and BRAHMAGIRI—all of copper and from the upper phase and of Chalcolithic influence form the metal tool repertoire.