The ingenious and persistent researches of the Swedish geologist, Baron Gerard de Geer, have taught us when the last Ice Period came to an end here in the north. The ice began to melt and retire from the southern coast of Scania 15,000 years before our time. There cannot be more than an error of a few centuries in this calculation.

But the southern border of the enormous ice-masses covering the north of Europe in the last Ice Period was not on the south coast of Scania; it lay farther south, in Brandenburg. It is uncertain what length of time was necessary for the ice to retire from Brandenburg to Scania. However, if we consider how slowly the melting was going on in the first millenniums, and how long it took for the ice to melt in the southern part of Sweden, it is highly probable that about 5,000 years were required to transfer the ice border from its most southerly point to Scania. Consequently, the beginning of the melting period in our northern region, i.e. the end of the last Ice Period in northern Europe, must fall about 20,000 years before our time.