Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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in Egypt at about 6000 B.C., when the inhabitants of Europe were in
the early stages of the Stone age. Similarly Greece had advanced to
the Iron age, while Italy was still in the Bronze period and the West of
Europe in the age of Stone. This shows that the progress of
civilization was slow in some and rapid in other places, the rate of
progress varying according to the local circumstances of each place.
Broadly speaking, however, the three periods of Stone, Bronze and
Iron may be taken to represent the three stages of civilization anterior
to the historic period.
Of these three different ages the oldest or the Stone age is
further divided into the Paleolithic and the Neolithic period, or the old
and the new Stone age. The distinction is based upon the fact that
the stone implements of the Paleolithic age are found to be very
rudely fashioned, being merely chipped into shape and never ground
or polished as is the case with the implements of the new Stone age.
Another characteristic of the Paleolithic period is that the implements
of the period are found in places which plainly show a much greater
antiquity than can be assigned to the remains of the Neolithic age,
the relics of the two ages being hardly, if ever, found together. The
third distinction between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic age is that
the remains of the Paleolithic man are found associated with those of
many great mammals, such as the cave bear, the mammoth and
wooly-haired rhinoceros that became either locally or wholly extinct
before the appearance of the Neolithic man on the stage. In short,
there is a kind of hiatus or break between the Paleolithic and Neolithic
man requiring a separate classification and treatment for each. It may
also be noted that the climatic conditions and the distribution of land
and water in the Paleolithic period were different from those in the
Neolithic period; while from beginning of the Neolithic period the
modern conditions, both geographical and climatic, have prevailed
almost unaltered up to the present time.
To understand the relation of these three ages within the
geological periods into which the history of the earth is divided