Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c10.3

c10.3

WITH an economy based on hunting and some gathering of fruits or other edible vegetable products, little development of the arts of living was possible, in either Western Asia or Northern Europe; and with the final withdrawal of the ice sheet large tracts of the Old World were sparsely populated by small hunting groups, on whom the changing climatic conditions imposed successive problems, generation after generation, as the herds of animals migrated or died out. It was a decisive moment in the history of mankind – a ‘moment’ spread over several thousand years – when man, instead of following the animals in search of climates and regions where he could continue his ancient way of life unchanged, elected to adapt himself to his changed environment and find new methods of obtaining food.