Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s2.1

v1.c20.s2.1

The participants in the 1983 Poona Seminar debated on the above question and the answer appears to be negative. Sankalia et al. (1969) had excavated the chalcolithic site of Ahar in Rajasthan, and their publication containing an erroneous stratigraphical chart created confusion. The iron artefact-containing layer was wrongly marked as IC, which led Sahi (1979) to propose that the earliest iron in India was evolved in chalcolithic Ahar during the thirteenth century BC. Although this view was endorsed by Chakrabarti (1982: 83) as well as Allchin and Allchin (1982: 325-26 & 345), the excavators themselves disagreed with this interpretation in view of “the great chance for contamination (between layers I and II), and the later objects getting mixed up with the earlier”. This point was subsequently clarified by Lal (1987-88).