The study published in a report titled ‘Antiquity of Iron: Recent Radiometric Dates from Tamil Nadu’, challenges established assumptions about Iron Age in the world and India.

Key Findings 

• Iron technology in Tamil Nadu dates as far back as 3345 BCE. 
• Charcoal & potsherds from the Sivagalai site ranged from 2953 BCE to 3345 BCE, making it the earliest recorded evidence of iron technology globally.
• Sarcophagus burial found at Kilnamandi dated to 1692 BCE is the earliest-dated burial of its kind in Tamil Nadu.
• Iron-smelting furnaces identified at Mayiladumparai, Kilnamandi, Perungalur sites etc. shows region’s technological sophistication in producing durable iron tools and weapons.

Significance

• Challenges Global Iron Age Timeline: The Iron Age, is traditionally linked to the Hittite Empire in Anatolia (Turkey), where iron technology is believed to have emerged around 1300 BCE.
• Challenges established linearity of cultures—iron succeeded copper because it required a different kind of skill & a more advanced level of metallurgical expertise. 
• Iron Age & Copper-Bronze Age Likely Contemporary in India: Unlike the global progression where Iron Age succeeded Copper-Bronze Age.
  • Previously, the Iron Age in India was thought to begin between 1500 and 2000 BCE, closely following the Indus Valley Civilization.
  • Challenges prevailing Theories like V. Gordon Childe & Mortimer Wheeler, who proposed that iron spread from a single Western center to the Indian subcontinent.