least some temperamental contribution to the Indian populations of the North and the North-east, if not much in the way of the material or spiritual; and it is for the future to disclose what line this Kirāta, this Indo-Mongoloid or Mongoloid contribution to Indian mentality and culture will take.

VI. Prehistory in South India

Megalithic sites, urns, ornaments, and skulls found in Southern India have given the occasion for speculation and surmises concerning the original home of the Dravidians. Several writers argue a Mediterranean home and origin. The following extract is from M. GOETZ, India, Five thousand years of Indian Art, Methuen. London, 1959, pages 33 and 34.

THE PREHISTORY OF Southern India-which lasted until about the 3rd century B.C.-is much more complex. It seems fairly probable that the same type of Mediterranean people who created the Indus Civilization, advanced through Mahārāshtra to the Tamil country; that it is responsible for the prevalence of brachycephals there; and that it imposed its language, the Dravidian, on the South. But there are no direct links with the Indus Civilization; instead, many observations speak for a direct contact with Iran, Iraq, Arabia, Syria and Egypt. The South-Indian cult of śiva and Pārvatī links up with the cult of the moon god and the "Lady of the Mountain" at Ur, their ceremonial nuptials, their palace-temple, the temple slaves, the hierodules (devadāsīs). South Indian painted pottery often resembles that of Tepe Hissar in Iran. Egyptian alabaster vases were discovered in Malabar. Terracotta sarcophagi, with or without legs, have their counterparts in Syria. The most common form of burial was the cromlech or stone circle, containing either a cist or an urn, or both; funeral accessories are large egg-shaped pots on ring-stands, polished blacktopped pots and lapislazuli beads. The cists, built of thick stone slabs, often have a hole on the northern or eastern side. This type, which seems to have migrated north rather late (c. 200 B.C.) from the uttermost South, appears to have come from overseas, the coast of the Arabian Sea, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, even Brittany. The urn-burials of Ādichanallūr (Tinnevelly district) contain golden diadems and mouthpieces, iron and bronze implements which are again related to Bronze Age finds in Palestine (Gaza, Gerar) and Cyprus. Rock tombs in the Deccan (Purandhar) resemble those of early Jewish times in Palestine. The