Iron Age in India

The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent succeeds the Late Harappan (Cemetery H) culture, also known as the last phase of the Indus Valley Tradition (present-day Pakistan and India). The main Iron Age archaeological cultures of present-day northern India are the Painted Grey Ware culture (1200 to 600 BCE) and the Northern Black Polished Ware (700 to 200 BCE).

North India

R. Tewari (2003) radiocarbon dated iron artefacts in Uttar Pradesh, including furnaces, tuyeres and slag between c. 1800 and 1000 BCE. Iron using and iron working was prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BCE. The beginning of the use of iron has been traditionally associated with the eastward migration of the later Vedic people, who are also considered as an agency which revolutionised material culture particularly in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The new finds and their dates suggest that a fresh review is needed. Further, the evidence corroborates the early use of iron in other areas of the country, and attests that India was indeed an independent centre for the development of the working of iron.

South India

The earliest Iron Age sites in South India are Hallur, Karnataka and Adichanallur, Tamil Nadu at around 1000 BCE. Archaeologist Rakesh Tewari, the Director, U.P. State Archaeological Department, India, stated that studies of the site at Karnataka implied "that they had already been experimenting for centuries" as by that time they were able to work with large artifacts. Shyam Sunder Pandey suggested that “the date of the beginning of iron smelting in India may well be placed as early as the sixteenth century BC” and “by about the early decade of thirteenth century BCE iron smelting was definitely known in India on a bigger scale”.

See also

• Middle kingdoms of India or Classical India
• History of Buddhism in India
• Epic India
• Mahajanapadas
• Maurya Empire
• Iron Age China
• Periodisation of the Indus Valley Civilisation

Further reading

• Kenoyer, J.M. 1998 Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press and American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Karachi.
• Kenoyer, J. M. 1991a The Indus Valley Tradition of Pakistan and Western India. In Journal of World Prehistory 5(4): 331-385.
• Kenoyer, J. M. 1995a Interaction Systems, Specialized Crafts and Culture Change: The Indus Valley Tradition and the Indo-Gangetic Tradition in South Asia. In The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, edited by G. Erdosy, pp. 213–257. Berlin, W. DeGruyter.
• Shaffer, J. G. 1992 The Indus Valley, Baluchistan and Helmand Traditions: Neolithic Through Bronze Age. In Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (3rd Edition), edited by R. Ehrich, pp. 441–464. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
• Chakrabarti, D.K.
  • 1974. Beginning of Iron in India: Problem Reconsidered, in A.K. Ghosh (ed.), Perspectives in Palaeoanthropology: 345-356. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
  • 1976. The Beginning of Iron in India. Antiquity 4: 114-124.
  • 1992. The Early Use of Iron in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  • 1999. India An Archaeological History. Delhi: Oxford University Press.