The Arctic Home in the Vedas c4.16

c4.16

Thus the oldest of the stratified rocks at present known is the Archæan or Eozoic. Next in chronological order come the Primary or the Palæozoic, the Secondary or the Mesozoic, the Tertiary or Cainozoic, and last the Quarternary. The Quarternary era, with which alone we are here concerned, is subdivided into the Pleistocene or the Glacial, and the Recent or the Post-Glacial period; the close of the first and the beginning of the second being marked by the last Glacial epoch, or the Ice Age, during which the greater portion of northern Europe and America was covered with an ice-cap several thousand feet in thickness. The Iron age, the Bronze age and the Neolithic age come under the Recent or the Post-Glacial period, while the Palæolithic age is supposed to fall in the Pleistocene period, though some of the palæolithic remains are post-glacial, showing that the palæolithic man must have survived the Ice Age for some time. Latest discoveries and researches enable us to carry the antiquity of man still further by establishing the fact that man existed even in the Tertiary era. But apart from it, there is, now, at any rate, overwhelming evidence to conclusively prove the wide-spread existence of man throughout the Quarternary era, even before the last Glacial period.