Did the iron age on Indian soil start from Tamil Nadu? | Explained Premium

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin pushes back the antiquity of iron, placing the iron age at 5,300 years ago.

The story so far: Releasing a report on the antiquity of iron, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin proclaimed that the iron age began on “Tamil soil”, placing the date 5,300-odd years ago (4th millennium BCE), and that the “history of Indian subcontinent could no longer overlook Tamil Nadu”.

The usage of iron is one of the most important technological innovations in human history. The genesis of iron in India has seen several explanations, including its supposed arrival with immigrants from the West. Experts and scholars, around the middle of the last century, traced its origins back to 700-600 BCE. However, subsequent radiocarbon dating and research pushed it further back. Technical studies on materials found at several places suggested that iron smelting in India could have begun as early as the 16th century BCE.

Furthermore, in the backdrop of the results of the excavations at Uttar Pradesh two decades ago, former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, Rakesh Tiwari, had highlighted in his paper, ‘The origins of iron-working in India: new evidence from the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas’ that by the early 13th century BCE, iron smelting was “definitely known in India on a bigger scale”. Iron artefacts, furnaces, and tuyeres, carbon-dated between 1800 and 1000 BCE, were found during the excavations conducted by the U.P. State Archaeological Department at Raja Nala-ka-tila (1996- 98), Malhar (1998-99), and Dadupur (1999-2001), among others. In Malhar, especially, the presence of tuyeres, slags, and finished iron artefacts, hinted at a large-scale manufacturing of iron tools. Collating all the evidence, it was said that iron smelting and manufacturing of iron artefacts were well known in the eastern Vindhyas, and iron may have been in use in the Central Ganga Plain at least from the early second millennium BC.

Editorial |​Further south: On the Iron Age and the south 

As for Tamil Nadu, several excavations have been underway. In 2022 — before the recent report released by Mr. Stalin pushed back the antiquity of iron — Mayiladumparai in Krishnagiri district came under the limelight after the Chief Minister placed the introduction of the iron age at 4,200 years ago (third millennium BCE) in the State. He cited the findings of the State Archaeological Department’s report titled ‘Mayiladumparai- Beginning of Agrarian Society; 4,200-year-old Iron Age Culture in Tamil Nadu’, resulting in experts pointing out that this placed the iron age in the State in the same timeline as the copper or bronze age in other parts.

The recently released report by the State Archaeology Department, ‘Antiquity of Iron: Recent radiometric dates from Tamil Nadu’, attests to this and has pointed out that when cultural zones to the north of Vindhyas experienced the copper age, those in the south might have entered into the iron age already, owing to the limited availability of commercially exploitable copper ore. Target-oriented excavations were initiated by the State Archaeology Department, the Archaeological Survey of India, and others in recent years across places such as Sivagalai, Adichanallur, Kilnamandi and Mayiladumparai in the State to arrive at a panoramic view of the nature of Tamil Nadu’s iron age. “Based on the findings, we have placed the date at 3,345 BCE to 2,953 BCE. On taking the mean age of this, we can arrive at the conclusion that iron age on Tamil soil started in the first quarter of the 4th millennium BCE,” an archaeology scholar told The Hindu, while reiterating that this, however, need not pave the way for assertions that the iron age originated from Tamil soil itself.

With this, the doors of further research into Tamil history and culture have opened up.