Times of India
Posted on 02/06/2025 8:08:09 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The Times of India reports that the dating of charcoal and pottery discovered with iron objects at the burial site of Sivagalai in southern India indicates that the Iron Age began in Tamil Nadu some 5,300 years ago. The testing, including accelerometer mass spectrometry and optically stimulated luminescence dating, was conducted by three different laboratories. It had been previously thought that iron was first worked in the Hittite Empire, in what is now Turkey, around 1380 B.C. “The recent radiocarbon dates indicate that when [the] Indus Valley experienced [the] Copper Age, south India was in [the] Iron Age,” said archaeologist K. Rajan. “In this sense, [the] Iron Age of south India and [the] Copper Age of the Indus were contemporary,” he explained. People living in southern India may have turned to iron, he added, because the amount of copper used by the Indus Valley civilization made copper ore difficult to obtain. The scientists will next analyze the chemical composition of the iron objects, which include knives, arrowheads, rings, chisels, axes, and swords.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
Tin Pan Alley?...................
In Irony?
Pittsburgh
Cue Ozzy...
an iron age working culture that predates the copper and bronze age of all the other places on earth? and in a region that traditionally received people and technology and farming from the north and specifically the indus river valley?
there will have to be a lot more discoveries like this and by a few non Indian teams for this story to gain currency.
One thing that can be said about this story is that it fits in nicely with the current hindu nationalist orthodoxy.
I always just HATED it when I found iron armor or a steel sword, only to be attacked by the Rust Monster (indicated by the letter “R”) a few dungeons later, while playing the early 80s text-only UNIX game of Rogue.
Yeah, all the sources I found in English were Indian. In addition, I’m not a supporter of the just-so “must have used stone, then copper, then bronze, then iron, just because” model, mainly because it doesn’t correspond to any actual dates. In the Americas, *some* Precolumbian cultures were still in the bronze age, AFAIK none had figured out iron, armor was made out of cotton, and some groups hadn’t even figured out ceramics, relying instead on gourds and whatnot.
:^) The only UNIX game I ever saw was the text Star Trek. Ah, the 70s...
My recent ancestors used sad irons, those came about during the Sad Iron Age. The original house burned down over a century ago, and the sad irons and all the cast iron cookware was dug out of the ashes, and were soon back at work.
:^) Probably the Irony Age antedates all of the others. And hasn’t ended. And isn’t likely to, knowing this crowd. ;^)
When US Air was still around, Pittsburgh was the major hub nearest here. It was always a thrill to make that descent and wave back at the people doing dishes inside the windows of their homes. :^)
Seems unfair that the Tin Age doesn’t get more press. And for that matter, we live in the Computer Age, but civilization skipped right over the Pewter Age.
We are now in the Cheap Chinese Plastic Crap Age...............
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Just whatever you do, don't bring up the Carbon Age, but the Carbon Fiber Age, that's okay. I was surprised that crabs can be used to make plastic:
No one ever talks about the Gold Age. When did the Gold Age begin? Or the Silver Age?
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