A long time ago there are no himalayas between India and China, the both cultures are frequently exchanged and are kept in sync at that time, but eventually himalayas rise up. With that at first the communation started to reduce and eventually died.
Let's assume from my crude drawing that the only way to reaching from India to China or viceversa is through that grid, blue portion is the ocean and people haven't yet invented the ship. and the yellow portion is desert and has ghosts roaming around so people can't travel that way. and the black portions are the location which have mountains and white portions are plateau which are suitable for travelling. moutains are very big to get to the top, height of these mountains is infinite. So if there is mountain between two white portions you can't travel by climbing the mountain.
And at each step people can go to 4 adjacent positions.
Our archeologists have taken sample of each mountain and estimated at which point they rise up at that place. So given the times at which each mountains rised up you have to tell at which time the communication between India and China got completely cut off.