Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/113/en

The so-called "post-Atlantean cultural epochs" — geologically: the *Holocene* — began after the retreat of the ice coverings in Europe and the mountain ranges of central Asia, leaving behind vast deposits of rubble and loess that have each become, down to the present day, the parent material of soil formation. The Old Testament as well as the myths of the peoples make reference to the "great flood," to the Deluge. In this mythic image, the passing of the legendary continent of Atlantis at the end of the Atlantean period — geologically the *Tertiary* and *Quaternary* — was recorded both in terms of the history of the Earth and of consciousness. The first of the post-Atlantean cultural epochs to unfold was the "ancient Indian culture," flourishing in the eighth to sixth millennia B.C.<ref>Rudolf Steiner: Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss, GA 13, Dornach 1989, S. 273 ff. – A dating of the post-Atlantean, respectively post-glacial cultural epochs becomes more possible the further they advance in gaining contours within historical documents. These, however, are only the outer expression of a consciousness-constitution prevailing among human beings of the respective time.