Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c9.11

c9.11

The importance of this sequence is that it appears to run more or less parallel with that long ago determined first in the Alps and later in Northern Europe. The Indian glaciations would appear to correspond to the main Ice Ages of Europe (excluding the first), and the last glaciations in India seem equivalent to the three periods of maximum intensity in the last European glaciation. As, both in Europe and in India, man-made tools have been found in many of the river terraces associated with this sequence of climatic changes, one would expect that the long-distance correlation established between the natural phenomena would be repeated in the tool types - and this is indeed the case, with parallel evolution in techniques taking place in both areas. It is probable that the North-west Indian climatic sequence can also be extended to take in Upper Burma and North China, and there is reason to think that the natural forces (probably mainly changes in solar radiation) responsible for the glacial and interglacial periods of the more northerly areas may also have produced the alternating periods of comparatively wet or dry climate (pluvial and interpluvial periods) implied by geology and the remains of fossil animals in South India and in East Asia.