New Study Reveals the Iron Age in India Began in the 4th Millennium BCE

New Study Reveals the Iron Age in India Began in the 4th Millennium BCE

A recent study, published in a report titled ‘Antiquity of Iron: Recent Radiometric Dates from Tamil Nadu’, challenges long-held assumptions about the Iron Age in both India and the world.

Key Findings:

• Iron technology in Tamil Nadu dates back as early as 3345 BCE.
• Charcoal and potsherds from the Sivagalai site, ranging from 2953 BCE to 3345 BCE, provide the earliest known evidence of iron technology globally.
• The sarcophagus burial found at Kilnamandi, dated to 1692 BCE, is the earliest recorded burial of its kind in Tamil Nadu.
• Iron-smelting furnaces discovered at Mayiladumparai, Kilnamandi, Perungalur, and other sites demonstrate the region’s advanced technology in producing durable iron tools and weapons.

Significance:

• Challenges the Global Iron Age Timeline: The Iron Age, traditionally associated with the Hittite Empire in Anatolia (Turkey), where iron technology is believed to have emerged around 1300 BCE, is now questioned.
• Challenges the Established Cultural Progression: The study disputes the notion that iron emerged after copper, suggesting that iron required more advanced skills and metallurgical expertise.
• Iron and Copper-Bronze Ages Likely Concurrent in India: Unlike the global trend where the Iron Age followed the Copper-Bronze Age, this study proposes that these periods likely coexisted in India.
• Challenges Prevailing Theories: The findings challenge the theories of scholars like V. Gordon Childe and Mortimer Wheeler, who proposed that iron technology spread from a single Western center to the Indian subcontinent.

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