Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s1.36

v1.c20.s1.36

The iron-making technology could be consolidated in Sialk VI only long after the stated date of 1190 BC and we do not see how the knowledge of iron-making could diffuse from Sialk VI into India, if it ever did, before the eleventh century BC. Cemetery B of Sialk, exhibiting an abundance of iron, has been dated to c. 900 BC by Ghirshman (1954). Chakrabarty (1979: 355-58) explained how Gordon’s (1950) argument to establish a Sialk analogy for the cairn-burials in India was untenable, and yet accepted uncritically by Banerjee (1965) to build up his hypothesis. Prakash and Tripathi (1986) have quoted the C-14 date (of TF-191 sample) 1155 ± 110 BC for the PGW culture in Atrañjikhera and the twelfth century BC date of Tadakanhalli — both corresponding to the introduction of iron in India. The above-mentioned dates just do not seem to support Banerjee’s hypothesis and ‘eagerness to explain anything in terms of a migration from the West’.