An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s16: 4.16 Iron Age
An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s16
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4.16 Iron Age
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Before the beginning of the early historical period in c. 600 B.C. there were four iron-using centres within the limits of present-day India: (1) the Indo-Ganga divide and the doab (first iron in the PGW levels [4.15] of the region); (2) c. India, particularly Malwa (first iron in the post-Chalcolithic [4.14.5] but pre-NBPW stage); (3) the middle and lower Ganga valleys (same as the preceding); and (4) s. India, particularly Karnataka (first dated iron in the Megalithic context [4.17.8] at HALLUR). Technology and origin are discussed at the end.
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(1) *PGW culture*. The basic distribution is in the Indo-Ganga divide and the upper Ganga valley. The recent report of about ten sites in the Hakra bed in Bahawalpur in Pakistan is explained by their close proximity to the SARASVATĪ course in Rajasthan which marks the s. boundary of the Indo-Ganga divide. A recent count lists about 315 sites with this pottery either in excavations or from the surface (Tripathi, 1976), but the total number may be much more. The excavated iron-bearing levels occur at the following: AHICCHATRA, ALAMGIRPUR, ALLAHAPUR, ATRANJIKHERA, HASTINĀPURA, KHALAUA, MATHURA, ROPAR, ŚRĀVASTĪ, NOH, KAMPIL and Jakhera. The sites of BHAGWANPURA², DADHERI, NAGAR and KATPALON where this pottery level is said to be coeval with the late Harappa level [4.10] and is without iron may well be ignored in the present context. Only the site, HASTINĀPURA, is properly published, though even here the report of the second dig at the site is largely unpublished. The diagnostic pottery [11.14], a finely levigated grey ware, wheel-turned, with mostly bowls and dishes painted in black with geometric designs like *svastika* and spirals, occurs in a limited quantity. The associated wares are red ware, generally plain, plain grey ware, black-and-red ware [11.6.3] and the black-slipped ware [11.13]. The structural remains are of wattle-and-daub, and the subsistence economy is based on rice, perhaps in addition to wheat and barley which occur in an earlier level at ATRANJIKHERA, the domestic cattle, sheep, buffalo and pig. Horse bones occur at HASTINĀPURA. ALLAHAPUR shows a close familiarity with the deer. Cloth-impressions have been found on sherds at ATRANJIKHERA and NOH. The miscellaneous cultural items comprise: beads of terracotta, bone and semiprecious stones; terracotta discs [6.7.3]; different types of bone and stone objects; animal terracotta figurines; glass, ivory, shell and horn objects; etc. Copper is known but is limited to minor objects like bangles, arrows and antimony rods [18.1]. The iron objects include: spears; arrows; points; socketed tangs; axes; hoe (reported from Jakhera); sickles (from ATRANJIKHERA and Jakhera); knives; blades, rods; a pair of tongs (from ATRANJIKHERA); nails; pins; and slag suggesting iron-smelting. The general range of ¹⁴C dates for this level is 800-400 B.C., although there is nothing sacrosanct about this range; the beginning may reasonably be earlier (cf. the date of 1025 B.C. from ATRANJIKHERA).
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This pottery is supposed to represent the Aryans in the divide and the doab. Even if one assumes that the Aryans are within the scope of archaeological investigations [contrast 4.15] one fails to understand how a class of pottery basically found e. of the Sutlej and a culture having rice, pig and buffalo among its components can be related to anything coming from the n.-w. The suggested link-up with the grey ware of the Gandhāra Grave culture, beginning around the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C., is untenable because the cultures themselves have nothing in common. A point which is not clear to the present writer is: to what extent can the PGW be used to mark a separate cultural phase? It seems that the basic ceramic column after the OCW [4.12] level in the doab is constituted by the black-and-red ware, black-slipped ware and red ware. At Jakhera, for instance, these three pottery types occur in Pd I. The PGW first occurs only in the upper phase of Pd II A. Pd II B is said to belong to the mature PGW stage but even here the earlier pottery types continue to occur in a significant quantity. However this is a point which can be settled only by further careful research and above all by the establishment of a detailed comparative stratigraphy between all excavated post-Harappa sites in the doab and the divide.
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(2) *Post-Chalcolithic but pre-NBPW stage in c. India (Malwa).* Very little is known about this stage except that it possesses iron. The main type sites are NAGDA and ERAN, neither of which is properly published. All that we know of this stage at ERAN is that this is a continuation of the earlier Chalcolithic elements [4.14.5] with the addition of iron and the dominance of a black-and-red ware. A little more is known about this stage at NAGDA (Banerjee, 1965). First, the earlier Chalcolithic elements continue to occur at this stage. Even as many as 112 microliths have been reported from this level. A black-and-red ware present earlier seems to become the dominant ware, although there are new varieties like a black-slipped ware, a granular-surfaced coarse ware [Vesiculated Ware, 11.17] and a double-slipped ware with a black slip over a red-slipped base. The houses are of mud-brick. The stone objects comprise grinding stones, pestles [6.19], mace-heads, sling-stones, hammers, etc. There are glass bangles and beads of terracotta, semiprecious stones, ivory and coral. Apart from terracotta spindle whorls [6.25] there is a double-pointed object of ivory with a median recess suggesting 'the shape of a shuttle, an essential equipment of looms'. A flattish figure of ivory suggests symbolically a human figure and could have been used as a piece of ornament. There is also 'a human-shaped figure in ivory with a naturalistic head and a pronounced hip'. The use of copper is apparently confined to minor objects. Iron objects are found right from the lowest level of this deposit at NAGDA and comprise a double-edged dagger, socket of an axe, spoon, axe with a broad cutting edge, ring, nail, arrowhead, spearhead, knife, sickle, etc. There are three ¹⁴C dates from the iron-bearing level at ERAN: 1040 ± 110, 1270 ± 110 and 1239 ± 71 B.C. The iron-bearing level at NAGDA has been dated by the writer *c.* 1100 B.C. at the latest (Chakrabarti, 1977) although Banerjee has put this level around 800 B.C.
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Incidentally at AHAR² in s.-e. Rajasthan which is close to Malwa iron including slag occurs as early as I B (including slag), dated about 1500 B.C. If there is no serious stratigraphic mix-up one has to assume that the Chalcolithic culture at AHAR² was an Iron Age culture after its Ia. It may be mentioned that the evidence of iron in AHAR² Chalcolithic is not from one trench but from five trenches (Sahi, 1979).
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(3) *Post-Chalcolithic but pre-NBPW stage in the middle and lower Ganga valley.* The published information is scanty. The major sites are PANDU RAJAR DHIBI, MAHISDAL, both in the Ajay valley, w. of the lower Ganga valley, and CHIRAND and SONPUR, both in the middle Ganga valley. This stage is a continuation of the earlier Chalcolithic stage with a black-and-red ware except the addition of iron. At MAHISDAL for instance even microliths occur in a significant quantity in the iron-bearing level which shows evidence of local ironsmelting in the form of slag. MAHISDAL has iron arrowhead, spearhead, chisel, nail, etc., in addition to an abundance of ore and slag. The available ¹⁴C dates suggest a date of 750-700 B.C. for the beginning of iron at MAHISDAL and this date can be extended to the other relevant levels of the region.
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(4) *Iron in the Megalithic context at Hallur and elsewhere in s. India.* The megaliths as a type, with a profusion of iron in them, continue well into the historical period in the s., and there are too many of them all over the peninsula calling for individual datings. The beginning of the Megalithic level which has been called the transitional phase between the Neolithic [4.6.9] and the Megalithic [4.17.8] at the site of HALLUR has revealed iron arrowhead and spearhead and gives two ¹⁴C dates broadly around 1000 B.C. That these dates are not freaks is suggested by a few other pre-500 B.C. dates from some Megalithic sites in the lower Deccan and s. [4.17.9]. The recent discovery (unpublished at the time of writing, 1978) of a Megalithic settlement site at HALLUR deserves attention, being likely to throw light on the Iron Age culture of this part of India.
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*Technology and origin.* The first iron-users in Malwa, and middle and lower Ganga valleys and s. India could easily use the locally available ore, and those in the doab could conveniently depend on the ore plentifully available in the neighbouring Rajasthan. The ore could be smelted in primitive clay furnaces of which there are many ethnographic parallels. It may be noted that at the Megalithic site of MAHURJHARI an iron axe contains 6% carbon, and this has to be called steel. There is no substance in the general assumption that the use of steel was unknown in India before the late centuries B.C.
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It may briefly be stated that the assumption that the beginning of iron in India should be associated with the coming of the Aryans and the supposed destruction of the Hittite monopoly of iron technology should now be discarded. Even without entering into any debate over the Aryans it may be pointed out that the so-called Hittite monopoly of iron is a myth (Chakrabarti, 1976) and that iron in the n.-w. part of the subcontinent is not found to be earlier than that in inner India. Moreover, in view of the high antiquity of iron in c. and s. India there is no difficulty in accepting India as a separate early centre of iron technology. It may also be stressed that the belief in a unitary origin of iron technology has been given a death-blow by the occurrence of smelted iron between 1600 and 1200 B.C. in stratified contexts at the site of Ban Chiang in Thailand.
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Banerjee, N.R., 1965, *Iron Age in India*, Delhi, pp. 204-8. Chakrabarti, D.K., 1976, in *Antiquity*, 50, pp. 114-24; 1977, in *Jour. Economic Hist. Orient*, 20, p. 182. Sahi, M.D.N., 1979, in Agrawal, D.P., & Chakrabarti, D.K., ed., *Essays in Indian Prehistory*, Delhi, p. 367. Tripathi, V., 1976, *Painted Grey Ware, an Iron Age Culture of n. India*, Delhi. For sites see respective entries in vol. II.—D.K. CHAKRABARTI