Iron Age in India

Common card · No. 357495

In the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent, the Iron Age succeeded Bronze Age India and partly corresponds with the megalithic cultures of South India. Other Iron Age archaeological cultures of north India were the Painted Grey Ware culture (1300–300 BCE) and the Northern Black Polished Ware (700–200 BCE). This corresponds to the transition of the Janapadas or principalities of the Vedic period to the sixteen Mahajanapadas or region-states of the early historic period, culminating in the emergence of the Maurya Empire towards the end of the period. The earliest evidence of iron smelting predates the emergence of the Iron Age proper by several centuries. Claims for iron smelting in Tamil Nadu as early as the mid-4th millennium BCE have been made on the basis of radiocarbon dates from charcoal samples at the site of Sivagalai, dated between c. 3345 and 2953 BCE. These dates are disputed.

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