Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c4.2

c4.2

I have ended my survey with Ashoka for the good reason that it is thereby possible to anchor Indian prehistory to the first firmly documented epoch of Indian history. The common division of the study of human cultures into 'prehistoric' and 'historic' categories is an unhappy one; often enough, the interrelationships and vagaries which are intelligible enough on the historic scene are useful reminders in the interpretation of undocumented material and help to bring it to much-needed life. Ashoka's era seems to me, in that fashion, to illumine much that went before it.