The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t4.37

c14.s1.t4.37

This assumption of a knowledge of metal technology, in contrast to that of any single metal at such a late stage, would not in any way conflict with the existence of a copper age in the Gangetic basin. The very difference in the cultural milieu and the distinct possibility of copper occurring earlier than the Grey wares in the Gangetic basin, would account for it. On the other hand, this would emphasize the position of raw materials. While copper is found in large quantities in Eastern India and Rajaputana, iron alone is plentiful in Central and Southern India. Then we will be able to understand better the occurrence of flat copper celts of the Gangetic valley type in Maharashtra and the famous copper swords at Kallur in the Raichur District. Hence it may be suggested that the transition to iron in Central India might have taken place sometime in the middle of the 1st millennium B.C.¹ Within an area of about sixty miles to the east and west of Maheshvar, a number of older formations project out of the volcanic lava. In these two areas a large number of "old iron working" have been reported.² But we do not know the antiquity of these workings. So a metallurgical analysis of the ores as well as the tools, may throw some significant light.