The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c10.16

c10.16

Within the country, the wide inviting alluvial plains, opening on to the main gateways to Western Asia, abut on an older land mass of Peninsular India, cut up into important river basins separated by ridges of hills and forests. This feature, in particular, has enabled the earlier inhabitants to isolate themselves in what may be called *culs de sac* or refuge zones. These factors account for certain peculiarities, or indeed anomalies, of Indian archaeology, which clearly show the features of a zone of immigration, where "the first appearance of a form is rapidly followed by the maximum, after which, the form lingers on in a gradually diminishing proportion".³