Remarks on two flints from Jubbulpore, Central India, exhibited at a meeting of the Society on 19th December 1867, and on the flint implements discovered there by the late Lieut. Downing Swiney, R.E.
Authors: Haswell James 
Published: December 2013

The two flints exhibited were received in August last (1867) from Mr H. Rivett-Carnac, the Secretary of the Antiquarian and Scientific Society of the Central Provinces of India, who has described that part of Lieut. Swiney’s collection (consisting of 182 pieces) which was left in India, and which is now in the possession of Lieut.-Col. Wells of the Royal Regiment. (See No. 1 of that Society’s Journal, Nagpore, 1866.) The principal part of the collection (numbering 977 pieces) is now in the British Museum, and was described by Mr John Evans, F.R.S., F.S.A, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries, 19th January 1865. Lieut. Swiney was Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways in Central India, and discovered these worked flints in 1864. Unfortunately for science, he died shortly after transmitting his collection to England.

These flints are amongst the first of the kind discovered in India, and are especially interesting at the present time, when every fact bearing on the antiquity of man is of importance.

(1.)
Their Locality.
—The most of these flints were found in the granitic gravel and red soil which cover the steep side of a small conical hill of granite in the neighbourhood of Jubbulpore. Lieut. Swiney first observed them in the bed of a small stream which runs down from this hill, and on tracing it to its source, and digging into the granitic gravel, he found a few more specimens lying near the surface, and a great number about two or three feet down, but none below this depth. A few were also found in the bed of the Nerbudda, which is a fact of great importance, for in the gravels of this very river remains of mammals occur in great abundance, and have been described by the late Dr Falconer as belonging probably to the Pliocene age. It is a matter which would well repay investigation, to discover whether the gravels in which these flints occur are identical with those containing the mammalian remains, or whether they are of a later age.

(2.)
Their Character.
—These flints are not made of common flint, but are formed chiefly from chalcedony, agate, cornelian, and jasper of various hues. According to Mr Evans’ information, none of these siliceous materials occur within two or three miles of the hill where they were discovered, and they must therefore have been carried there from a range of hills two or three miles off, where they abound. But according to Mr Rivett-Carnac, who seems to speak from personal observation, the locality where the flints were found abounds in the materials of which they are formed. The Swiney collection, described by Mr Evans, contains five classes of flints, viz., (1.) Nuclei, or cores, from half an inch to two inches in length, of cylindrical and polygonal forms. One specimen, in particular, is only half an inch in diameter at the base, three-quarters of an inch long, and exhibits no less than fourteen facets. (2.) Large rough flakes, which in Mr Evans’ opinion were not intended for use, but were chipped off from the cores to produce a fresh flat surface. (3.) Smaller flakes and splinters, some of which are failures, or ‶wasters.″ (4.) More finished flakes, which do not exceed two inches in length, and are precisely similar to the flakes found in Europe, and may have been used to tip darts or small arrows. (5.) Worked flakes, some of which show signs of wear, and were probably used for scraping bone, or as saws (several being serrated). The flints exhibited by Mr Haswell belonged to the first and third of these classes respectively. The ‶core″ showed a portion of the original surface of the pebble from which it had been formed, the facets being on three sides only, leaving one of the sides unchipped.

(3.)
Their Age.
—Neither the depth at which they are found, nor their form, nor the weathering which some of them have undergone, afford certain data of their antiquity. There is nothing to show that they may not have been used by a people who were acquainted with the use of metals. From the fact that most of the flints are nuclei, chips, and waste, and that there are very few of a finished character, it would rather appear that Lieut. Swiney had come upon the site of a former manufactory; but at what period those native tribes at Jubbulpore established this manufactory is a matter still to be determined.