वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

THE GLACIAL PERIOD. · 37 scientific researches, discussed in this and the previous chapter, may now be summed up as follows:— (1) In the very beginning of the Neolithic age Europe is found to be inhabited by races, from whom the present races of Europe speaking Aryan languages are descended. (2) But though the existence of an Aryan race in Europe in early Neolithic times is thus established, and, therefore, the theory of migrations from an Asiatic home in Post-Glacial times is untenable, it does not prove that the Aryan race was autochtho- nous in Europe, and the question of its original home cannot, therefore, be regarded as finally settled. (3) There are good reasons for supposing that the metal age was introduced into Europe by foreign people. (4) The different ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron were not synchronous in different countries, and the high state of civilisation in Egypt is not, therefore, inconsistent with the Neolithic stage of European civilisation at the time. (5) According to the latest geological evidence, which cannot be lightly set aside, the last Glacial period must have closed and the Post-Glacial commenced at about 10,000 years ago, or 8,000 B. C. at the best, and the freshness of the Siberian fossil-deposits favours this view. (6) Man is not merely Post-Glacial as he was believed to be some years ago, and there is conclusive geological evidence to prove his wide-spread existence in the Quaternary, if not also in Tertiary, era. (7) There were at least two Glacial and one Inter-Glacial period, and the geographical distribution of land and water on the earth during the Inter-Glacial period was quite different from what it is at present. (8) There were great vicissitudes of climate in the Pleistocene period, it being cold and inclement during the Glacial, and mild and temperate in the Inter-Glacial period, even as far as the Polar regions.