Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c9.45

c9.45

To sum up so far; it is here postulated that about 300 B.C. certain cultural elements, with iron as their major component, were infiltrating southwards into a variety of Chalcolithic communities, when their progress was suddenly stimulated and given a new political coherence by the southerly extension of the Mauryan empire from its homeland in the northern plains. Between the invading complex and the crude Chalcolithic cultures upon which it impinged there was no organic transition, save where the advancing iron outpaced its own N.B.P. Ware and absorbed the makers of the Black-and-red Ware farther south. For the most part, the invader passed over the invaded like the tide over the sand. It was a case of cultural conquest, nothing less.