1 PART II.— HISTORICAL NOTES.
2 No attempt will be made in this compilation to give a history of the
3 Punjab in the ordinary sense of that term, but the following notes are
4 intended to sum up from the imperfect and fragmentary data at present
5 available, all that is known of the ancient political and ethnic conditions
6 of the Punjab and North-West Frontier : —
7 Pbe-histohy.
8 In the domain of pre-history nothing has been done for the Punjab
9 and probably very little will ever be found possible of achievement.
10 Its plains were formed of vast alluvial deposits which must have con¬
11 cealed all prehistoric remains beyond hope of recovery, save by some
12 lucky accident, and the physical features of the hills are rarely favour¬
13 able to their preservation,
14 The Stone Age has left its traces in India, but paleolithic relics are
15 mostly localised in the South, while the neolithic artifacts are much more
16 widely spread. The distribution of the latter is naturally Influenced
17 by the prevalence of rooks suitable for their manufacture.. Neolithic
18 implements are found over the greater part of Southern India, but in¬
19 stances of their occurrence in the Punjab, Rajputana, and Sind, except at
20 Rohri, are rare. Some finds of prehistoric pottery in Baloohistan are
21 tentatively considered to be neolithic.
22 The first use of iron in Northern India must be carried back to a
23 very remote antiquity. The literary evidence indicates^ its introduction
24 into the North-West subsequently to the composition of the JRig Veda
25 but before the Atharoa Veda was written and the latter work is not
26 later than 1000 BO. Before that date copper occupied the place of iron.
27 Alb the Indian implements discovered are certainly of extreme antiquity
28 and must be dated back to before 1000 B. C.
29 At two sites in Balochistan implements of practically pure copper
30 have been found. At Mathura, east of the Jumna, Cunningham ex¬
31 cavated a flat copper celt and copper harpoon heads are said to have been
32 frequently found in its vicinity. At Tvohistan Hill and lank, probably
33 not very far from Gwadar, in Western Baloehistao, copper arrow heads
34 have been discovered. These and other finds in Northern India carry
35 the range of copper implements all over that area from the Hugh on the
36 east to the Indus on the west, and from the foot of the Himalayas to
37 the Cawnpore district, but no specimens from the Punjab havo been
38 recorded.
39 Thus India as a whole had no Bronze Age. 1 In Southern India the
40 neolithic period passed directly into that of iron, but in Northern India
41 a Copper Age intervened between the neolithic period and the Iron Age,
42 The South was severed from all intercourse with the North, and in 700
43 B C. Panini, who was bom at Salatura, (Lahor) in the Peshawar
44 valley, knew nothing of the South, but about that time the intrusive
45 northern races began to penetrate the broad and nearly impassable
46 barrier of forest which then covered the natural defences of the Yin-
47 dhyaus and their associated races.
48 lTlib is also Canon Green well's conclusion : nee Vincent Smith, Ths Copper Age and
49 Prehistoric Bronx# Implements of India, Ind* Ant.t 1907, p. 53.