Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (6.1988/1991)

214

VASANT SHINDE

Fig. 3. A present-day antler seed-drill. Seeds are passed to the furrows through bamboo pipes. Drawn by
bullocks. □ Ein neuzeitliches Drillgerat mit Geweihsprossen als Furchenrbhren. Die Saat gelangt durch
ausgebohrte Bambusstabe in die Furchen. Das Gerat wird von Ochsen gezogen.


The present-day antler seed-drills are
slightly different from this specimen of the
chalcolithic period. The present ones are at-
tached to a regular wooden ard plough drawn
by a pair of bullocks. The seed drill consists
of four hollow bamboo rods (1 m high) at-
tached to a wooden bowl with four perfora-
tions on top and four plough shares attached
to a horizontal bar at the bottom. Seeds are
put in a bowl and are passed down evenly to
furrows through the bamboo rods (Fig. 3).
The prehistoric specimen could have been
drawn by one person with the help of a rope
tied near its end and another person could
have pressed it hard and released seeds
through the hollowed portion. However, this
procedure appears to be cumbersome but

another possibility that this specimen was
used as a dibble stick is not convincing. Be-
fore reaching any conclusion it is essential to
carry out some experimental study on repli-
cas of these prehistoric tools. However, if
these objects are really an ard plough-share
and a seed-drill then the antiquity of such
objects goes back to the middle of the second
millennium B. C. in India.
Continued on page 220.