Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s23.6

c4.s23.6

First the prehistorians had to expand the Three Ages into Four: Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Copper and Iron. Later, as discovery followed discovery, the first was split up into three sub-divisions: Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic and so also others. The initiator was Lord AVEBURY (formerly Sir JOHN LUBBOCK). His lead was followed by LARTET, de MORTILLET and MONTELIUS and the various chronological frameworks of prehistory so developed were adopted by the leading writers, until drastic changes were proposed by the Abbe BREUIL. LARTET for the first time put forward a classification of archaeological material from the various French caves on the palaeontological data. He thus respectively distinguished four periods according to the occurrence of such animals as the Bison, the Reindeer, the Wooly Mammoth and the Cave Bear.