Iron Age Cultures In India
• The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent succeeded the Late Harappan culture. The main divisions of Iron Age in India are the in North , Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture (1100 to 350 BC) and the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) culture (700 to 200 BC) and in south , Meghaliths.
• Iron Age in India brings one to the threshold of ancient history. This culture had recorded history. Literary accounts of the contemporary period are recorded in Vedas, Upanishads and other Brahmanic literatures. A combination of archaeological evidences and such literary accounts have become a standard method of dealing with Iron Age culture in India.
Time Period:(1200-272 BC)
• The origin of iron in our sub-continent still remains a matter of dispute among specialists. It is important also to remember that some tribes of India, such as, Agarias of Madhya Pradesh, prepare iron tools from surface ores with indigenous techniques and trade their finished products among the local villagers. It can be assumed that these communities must have had their knowledge for a time, may be for several thousand years.
• The earliest Iron Age sites in South India are Hallur, Karnataka and Adichanallur of Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu at around 1000 BC. Technical studies on materials dated c. 1000 BC at Komaranhalli (Karnataka) showed that the smiths of this site could deal with large artifacts, implying that they had already been experimenting for centuries (Agrawal et al. 1985: 228-29).
• Sahi (1979: 366) drew attention to the presence of iron in Chalcolithic deposits at Ahar, and suggested that “the date of the beginning of iron smelting in India may well be placed as early as the sixteenth century BC” and “by about the early decade of thirteenth century BC iron smelting was definitely known in India on a bigger scale”.
North India Iron Age
• Historical kingdoms of the Iron Age.
- Iron Age India (1200-272 BC)
- Maha Janapadas (700-300 BC)
- Magadha Empire (648-424 BC)
- Nanda Empire (424-321 BC)
- Maurya Empire (Pre-Ashoka) (321-272 BC)
With the exception of the earliest phase of the Rigveda, most of the Vedic period, falls within the early part of the Indian Iron Age around 12th to 6th centuries BC. The development of early Buddhism takes place in the Magadha period around 5th to 4th centuries BC. The edicts of Ashoka, 272-232 BC suggest that the North Indian Iron Age can be taken to end with the rise of the Maurya Dynasty and the appearance of literacy, indicating gradual onset of historicity.
Gangetic Valley(PGW and NBPW Cultures)
The colonization of Ganga basin by iron users can be taken as one of the best evidence of second urbanization in India
A) Painted Grey Ware Culture
The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age culture of Gangetic plain, lasting from roughly 1000 BC to 600 BC. It is contemporary to, and is a successor of the Black and red ware culture. It probably corresponds to the later Vedic period. It is succeeded by Northern Black Polished Ware from ca. 500 BC.
The first large-scale and effective use of iron in India is associated with this culture. The PGW culture is found in the Indo-Gangetic Divide and the upper Ganga-Yamuna doab, the ancient Aryavarta and Madhyadesa. The PGW was produced from well-lavigated clay and manufactured on a fast wheel.
A thin slip was applied on both surfaces and the ware was baked at a temperature of 600 degree celcius under reducing conditions, which produced the smooth ashy surface and core (Hegde, 1975).
The distinctive shapes are dish with curved sides and bowls with straight sides. The vessels are painted in black pigment on both surfaces with geomatric patterns like dots, groups of vertical lines, concentric circles, bands, and strokes of vertical and slanting lines, dashes, chains, loops, spirals, sigmas and swastikas. Naturalistic patterns like lotuses, leaves, bunch of flowers and the sun are also occasionally found.
The PGW people cultivated rice and wheat and lived in wattle-and-daub houses. They were the first people to have definitely used the domesticated horse.
B) Northern Black Polished Ware Culture and the Second Urbanization
The Northern Black Polish Ware (NBPW) Culture in India is a definite Iron Age Culture, succeeding the Painted Grey Ware Culture. Iron technology accelerated colonization of the middle and lower Ganga valley by farmers around 700 BC onwards. The characteristic pottery of this period is Northern Black Polished Ware. The NBP period saw the emergence of cities and first political entities known as Mahajanapadas in the Ganga plains in the 600 BC. The NBP region is also the locale of the second major Hindu epic, the Ramayana, and of the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. This period witnessed the second urbanization of India. By 600 BC a number of these Mahajanapadas had been assimilated into the first Indian empire known as the Magadhan Empire with its capital at Pataliputra being located at the place where modern Patna in Bihar is situated. The Magadhan Empire was succeeded by the Mauryan Empire in the 400 BC. The best known Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, expanded the empire up to Karnataka in the south, Bangladesh in the east and Afganistan in the northwest. He also patronized Buddhism and promoted its spread within the country as well as outside in Sri Lanka and other countries of Asia. After the long gap between first and second urbanization, lasting about 1500 years, writing again appeared during this period. The script is known as Brahmi. Buddhist and Jains literatures were in Pali language. The pillar and rock edicts of emperor Ashoka were written in Brahmi script. Coinage in the form of silver punch-marked coins appeared in this period.
Iron age in Southern Zone
This is the area, which developed a fairly consolidated regional character during 1500-1300 BC. Iron Age in this area does not develop any special characteristic of its own like what has been observed in Western Uttar Pradesh. The Iron Age in South India till today is known entirely from a large variety of burials and their accompanying grave goods. Since these graves are mostly megalithic in nature the cultures are traditionally known as ‘Megalithic Culture’. Further, the ‘Megaliths of India’ may also refer to the memorial and sepulchral stones erected by the tribals living in various parts of India in the historic period.
Following is the brief information on Iron Age Megalithic types of South India. The Megalithic burials found so far with iron were from South India particularly from Deccan. They can be grouped as follows:
- Large urns with bones collected from previously excarnated(flesh off) dead bodies in them. These urns are kept with grave goods in a pit. The pit after covering can be marked by a circular demarcation made of stones.
- Cists made out of slabs of stones and may at times be covered with a similar flat stone on top. These are sometimes with portholes curved out on one of the chamber wall slabs.
- Legged-urn or sarcophagi used to encase the body before actual burial is another important pattern of these Megaliths.
- Sometimes chambers have been cut out in the compact lateritic floor and the body was placed inside the chamber.
Large numbers of variations are seen in the pattern of disposal of the dead in the region.
The Megalithic arrangement on the ground to mark the grave also can vary from one kind of burial system to the other. In all Iron Age sites of Deccan India Black-and-Red ware is seen as the common feature of Iron Age and Megalithic culture.
The pottery types include carinated vessels, bowls with pedestals and spouted dishes. A conical shaped lid is found often provided with a loop on the top.
The iron implements which are common to all megalithic sites are flat axes with crossed straps, sickles, tripods, tridents, spear heads, lamps, multiple lamp hangers and arrow heads.
The Megalithic builders appears entirely exotic in the pre-existing cultural canvas of the region. And this led many scholars to visualize a new population movement from west. The traditional homeland of Chalcolithic culture, i.e. West Asia, does not show the practice of Megalithic burials and hence cannot be considered as the source of dispersal of the iron using megalithic builders.
Instead the coastal regions of South Arabia and the Levant show sarcophagi and cist graves during Iron Age. They probably came by sea route to enter into Deccan India. Apparently, these people did not create any urban settlements, the likes of which we have witnessed in the Harappan period or during the phase of second urbanization in the Ganga valley.
Megalithic builders might have maintained isolated gypsy like tented colonies where they might have bred and grazed horses to be traded with the newly rising political centres around the middle Ganga valley. Megalithic Iron Age in Deccan India remained so much self-centred that it did not take much effort for the northern centres of power to spread their dominance into this region within a span of 500 to 600 years.
EASTERN INDIA
In this are the iron is found to be associated with the Black-and-red ware pottery tradition succeeded by NBPW. Some of the important archaeological sites in this area from where the iron implements are reported are Chirand, Sonpur, Taradih, Pandu-rajardhibi and Mahisdal. The iron implements include arrow-heads, spear-heads, chisels, nails etc. Evidences of furnaces for smelting the metal have been reported from Pandu-rajardhibi. The C14 dates have estimated the use of iron in this area to approximately 750 B.C.
CENTRAL INDIA & DECCAN:
The area in this category includes the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh and Western region of Maharashtra. In this region the Chalcolithic period is followed by Black-and-red ware culture which is an iron age culture. The important site of this region are Nagda, Eran, Ujjain, Kayatha, Prakash, Bahal etc. The iron implements reported form this area are dagger, butt of an axe, spoon, flat axe, arrowhead, knives and sickle. The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra with sites like Takalghat, Khapa, Mahurjhari, Junapani, Naikund and Khairwada have yielded evidences of Megalithic Culture. The iron implements reported from these sites are: Spear, arrow-heads, knives, chisels, swords, daggers, axes, fish hooks, saddle, nails etc. On the basis of C-14 dates of these sites the date of iron prevalence can be estimated to 7th century B.C. The representative pottery is black-and-red ware; other antiquities are copper implements, beads of semi-precious stones.