Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.8

c6.8

Unfortunately, one potential test which can, and will, help to regulate conjecture has not yet, except for occasional pioneer attempts,⁴ been extended to the subcontinent. That is the now well-known method, introduced in 1949, of calculating the residual radioactive content of ancient organic material and thereby deducing the time-interval since the 'death' of that material, a method applicable under suitable conditions and controls to periods up to forty thousand years from the present.⁵ This new technique, though still in the experimental stage, is in process of revolutionizing our understanding of the tempo and interrelationship of human achievement elsewhere, and its further application to Indian material by the National Physical Laboratory of India, which is understood to have the matter in hand, is an outstanding need.