An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c10.s6.2

v1.c10.s6.2

Samples of the OCW [4. 12] from ATRANJIKHERA, LAL QILA, JHINJHANA and NASIRPUR, all in Uttar Pradesh, were assayed at Oxford by Aitken's group. Since all the pottery samples were from the OCW culture one expected the TL dates to give a time-spread of 200 to 300 years. Instead, the dates show a wide scatter of *c.* 1180-2650 B.C. At the moment the dates only indicate that the OCW culture is pre-1100 B.C. and thus a pre-Iron Age culture. The BARC group TL-dated a variety of samples ranging from the medieval to the pre-Harappa [4.8] times. The table shows that the few samples that have been TL-dated only indicate the dating potentiality of this method. There is not much of archaeological value that can be learnt from the dates so far available.