Iron Age in India
Iron Age historical period in the Indian subcontinent
In the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent, the Iron Age succeeded Bronze Age India and partly corresponds with the megalithic cultures of South India. Other Iron Age archaeological cultures of north India were the Painted Grey Ware culture (1300–300 BCE) and the Northern Black Polished Ware (700–200 BCE). This corresponds to the transition of the Janapadas or principalities of the Vedic period to the sixteen Mahajanapadas or region-states of the early historic period, culminating in the emergence of the Maurya Empire towards the end of the period.
The earliest evidence of iron smelting predates the emergence of the Iron Age proper by several centuries. Claims for iron smelting in Tamil Nadu as early as the mid-4th millennium BCE have been made on the basis of radiocarbon dates from charcoal samples at the site of Sivagalai, dated between c. 3345 and 2953 BCE. These dates are disputed.
Region
Northern India
R. Tewari (2003) radiocarbon dated iron artefacts in Uttar Pradesh, including furnaces, tuyeres, and slag between c. 1800 BCE to 1000 BCE. Antiquity of iron in India was pushed back from following the excavations at Malhar, Raja Nala ka Tila, Dadupur and Lauhradewa in Uttar Pradesh from 1996 to 2001.
The use of iron and iron working was prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BCE.
The beginning of the use of iron has been traditionally associated with the eastward migration of the later Vedic people, who are also considered as an agency which revolutionised material culture particularly in the Greater Magadhan region.
Scholar Rakesh Tewari states that new finds and their dates suggest the need for a fresh review.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Iron Age in India” as iron Age historical period in the Indian subcontinent. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1056845. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1300, 2003, 1800 and 1000.
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