File:Natives of northern India (1907) (14761923831).jpg

Identifier: nativesofnorther00croo (find matches)
Title: Natives of northern India
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Crooke, William, 1848-1923
Subjects: Ethnology -- India India -- Social conditions India -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : A. Constable and Company, ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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he course of their migra-tions. The origin of the Bengali. The Aryan migration.The absence of Dravidians in the Punjab. The questionof Baluchistan. The mixed races. We considered in the last chapter the physicalenvironment and its influence upon the people. Itnow becomes necessary to deal with the elements,prehistoric and historic, out of which they have beenformed. Our knowledge of the prehistoric races is slight, be-cause the sepulchral remains and rude stone monu-ments which abound on the plateaux of SouthernIndia are scanty in the north. We can trace, as thearchaeologists of Europe have done, a palaeolithicperiod characterised by rude stone implements; theneolithic, with those of polished stone ; and the age ofcopper. Stone implements of both periods have beenfound throughout the entire Peninsula, from Madras inthe south, along the western coast as far as the valleyof the Indus ; all through the plateau of the Deccanwith its girdle of hills ; and far to the east in Burma. 16 No. 3
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Hindu Mkrchant, Wksti rn India (p. ! i i) THE ETHNICAL ELEMENTS 17 They have been discovered in Northern India at con-siderable depths in the alluvium, and beneath thesites of the oldest human settlements. They aboundall along the backbone of the Peninsula, the Satpura,Vindhya, and Rajmahal hills, and in some places whatseem to be manufactories of these implements havebeen unearthed. Here, as in many other places, theages of rough and polished stone overlap, and thereis no evidence to fix the sequence of the races whomay have used them. Caves and rock-shelters have been discovered in theVindhyan range, in which the jungle-folk are depictedpursuing the Gaur or great wild ox and the Sambharstag with lances furnished with blades of stone. Itis impossible to define the age of these rock draw-ings, which resemble those of the South African orAustralian tribes. They are executed in hematite, asubstance which under favourable circumstances mayendure for a considerable time. But it must be no

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