The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s2.2

c14.s2.2

But in areas, where these conditions were not favourable, certain communities had remained predominately in a food gathering and hunting economy, supplemented by primitive agriculture and stock-raising. This is not conducive to progress. This phenomenon can be very well-studied in Africa, where Prehistoric studies have made great progress. We see a continuous development of human cultures through the major part of the Pleistocene and Holocene ending in Mesolithic stage (Capsian) about 5000 B.C. At that stage, the Neolithic revolution took place. It is only in the vast alluvial plains of the Nile, that large scale agricultural communities could flourish and carry forward the torch of civilization. The rest of Africa survived in a primitive economy. In this process the desiccation of North Africa and the expansion of the deserts on either side of the equatorial forests sealed the fate of the continent.¹