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

12 . THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
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 Quaternary era, even before the last Glacial
period.
Various estimates have been made regarding the time of the
commencement of the Neolithic age, but the oldest date assigned
does not exceed 5000 B. C., a time when flourishing empires
existed in Egypt and Chaldea. These estimates are based on
the amount of silt which has been found accumulated in some of
the smaller lakes in Switzerland since the lake-dwellers of the
Neolithic period built their piled villages therein. The peat-mosses
of Denmark afford means for another estimate of the early
Neolithic period in that country. These mosses are formed in
the hollows of the glacial drift into which trees have fallen and
become gradually converted into peat in course of time. There
are three successive periods of vegetation in these peat-beds, the
upper one of beech, the middle one of oak, and the lowest of all,
one of fir. These changes in the vegetation are attributed to slow
changes in the climate and it is ascertained from implements and
remains found in these beds, that the Stone age corresponds mainly
with that of Fir and partly with that of Oak, while the Bronze age
agrees mainly with the period of Oak, and the Iron with that of
Beech. It has been calculated that about 16,000 years will be requ-
ired for the formation of these peat-mosses, and according to this
estimate we shall have to place the commencement of the Neolithic
age in Denmark, at the lowest, not later than 10,000 years ago.