Ancient Iron Age Period of Telugu Region Dates Back 4,000 Years Ago
“Discovery of Ancient Telugu Daggers May Push Back Start of Iron Age by Thousands of Years”
Iron ore is available in two types of mineral formations, i.e. the magnetite and laterite. Both the minerals can yield up to 60 % iron. The Telugu Region seems to have mastered the steel production. They adopted the crucible technology for manufacturing steel. The aim was to increase the carbon content in iron, so that it acquired the properties of steel. Thus they were achieving by inserting wet sticks into the furnace. The slow burning of the wet sticks was probably resulting in larger absorption of carbon by the iron, making it acquire the properties of steel. During the medieval period, the Indian steel known as 'wootz' used to be in high demand from the Middle East for production of swords. With reference to the South Indian Iron age, we have to understand that there is some ambiguity regarding its origin or adoption of the technology. With the commencement of the Iron Age, we see sudden perfection in the variety of iron objects. We do not come across the rudimentary developmental stages we usually expect when a new technology is introduced in a region. On the other hand, we see profusion in the variety and quantity of objects we find in the Iron Age graves. This might suggest the adoption of technology from some other region, where already, the technology had been sufficiently developed. The other possibility is that we are yet to locate the early Iron Age sites from South India, where the technology might have the inception and development. In South India, it is a common feature that we find rich repository of iron objects in most of the meg- 131 alithic graves. Varieties of tools, weapons and many miscellaneous objects have been found in these graves.
Some of the tools reveal the craft specialization and provide a peep into the kind of professions pursued by the megalithic folk. Agricultural tools like sickles, ploughshares and hoes were found in a good number at several places. Similarly, carpentry tools like several varieties of chisels, adzes, axes and nails have been reported. More impressive are the weapons probably used in hunting and fights. Battle axes, javelins, spears, tridents, daggers, knives, etc. are found at several places. The horse bits, harnesses and horse ornaments suggest riding and active engagement in martial activities.
Gachibowli
In the Mid –Lower Krishna River watershed many megalithic mortuary complexes and settlements have been documented as Iron Age or megalithic-period sites.
Krishna Sastry (2003: 109) lists 15 Iron Age settlements, 270 mortuary sites and 111 settlement/mortuary sites in the Krishna River drainage within the modern-day states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Yet adequate dating and empirical description at most of these sites are not well developed and most of the small number of radiocarbon dates from ‘megalithic’ deposits (e.g. Satanikota, Veerapuram, Polakonda) clearly date to the Early Historic period.
with North Indian Early Historic wares (e.g. Northern-Black-Polished Ware and Rouletted Ware), suggesting a very late or post-Iron Age origin for the settlement (Sastri 1992: 3, 6). When Amaravati was initially recorded by Colin Mackenzie in 1816 he mapped several extensive distributions of stone circle megaliths, including an area immediately south-west of Dharanikota as well as throughout the granite hill chains to the south-east, adjacent to the Early Historic Buddhist monastery at Vaddamanu (Fergusson 1873; Shimada 2013) (Fig. 13). While these megaliths remain undated, two threads of data suggest that some may pre-date Early Historic-period settlement.
First, at Amaravati, Alexander Rea (1912) excavated 17 Iron Age urn burials beneath a small stūpa c. 75m north-west of the mahāstūpa. At Vaddamanu an early stūpa appears to have been constructed to incorporate the remains of a large stone cist-circle megalith (Fig. 14) (Sastri 1992: 4–5). Indeed, further upstream on the Krishna River at Yeleswaram excavations exposed an Early Historic stūpa built atop megalithic burials (Khan 1963). This pattern suggests the Buddhist sangha (monastic communities) were selecting pre-existing mortuary complexes as locations for monastic architecture – acts of spatial appropriation (DeCaroli 2007; Morrison 2009; Johansen 2014b; Schopen 2004 [1996]).
While the presence of megalithic mortuary features beneath Early Historic-period monastic architecture does not necessarily imply that the former were Iron Age features it demonstrates regional temporal precedence. If these mortuary features and the other reported megaliths were Iron Age in origin, then we might anticipate systematic survey to discover settlements in the region as well, given patterns recorded elsewhere. The early dates at Dharanikota demonstrate that the social, economic and political processes that gave rise to the fortified, urban, Early Historic settlement began in the Iron Age, perhaps involving a settlement consolidation process similar to those that are coming to light in nearby regions of the south Deccan (e.g. the central Tungabhadra River corridor and the Raichur District of Karnataka) (Sinopoli 2009; Johansen and Bauer 2015). Yet here, unlike central Karnataka, there appears to be evidence of a more intensified socio-economic interaction with North India in the centuries that followed the establishment of Dharanikota. This is demonstrated by unquantified proportions of North Indian ceramics and, eventually, coins and monastic architecture. The interaction with North Indian traders, as well as with religious and perhaps political (e.g. Mauryan) emissaries, provided opportunities for local settlement community members to contest, maintain and create novel social relationships, affiliations and differences within a dynamic societal field of practice, one that was steeped in the history and structure of Iron Age social and political relations.
The gradual establishment of monastic architectural complexes, many with well-documented donative inscriptions such as those of Amaravati, demonstrates that Buddhism provided an ideology and field of socio-ritual practice that was accepted and adopted by some members of local settlement communities. Like megalithic monumentalism and mortuary practices, participation in Buddhist rituals and the construction of monastic architecture (as donors, lay practitioners, bhikkhus/bhikkhunis (Buddhist monks and nuns)) soon became a new idiom of socio-ritual practice through which social relations were created, reproduced and modified in the lower Krishna River drainage. Together with megaliths these new religious monuments colonized the spatial margins of several Early Historic settlements across the region (see Shimada 2013), becoming important vectors for both the strengthening and contesting of traditional social distinctions and affiliations and for the production of novel others (e.g. Buddhist communities of practice),
at a time when Andhradeśa was developing regional states, more rigidly defined forms of political authority and increasingly stratified social relations from the ranked social relations, inequalities and affiliations created, fostered and maintained during the Iron Age.
Indian archaeologists say recent dagger discoveries at ancient sites in Hyderabad have pushed the Iron Age in India back to at least 2200 BC—around 1,000 years before the rest of the world. Indian scholars had previously estimated an earlier date for India’s Iron Age than other parts of the world by about 600 years.
Expressing serious concern, archaeologists said a great legacy would be wiped out once and for all if remedial steps are not taken immediately. Known as ‘Rakasigulla Chalka,’ the site has more than 100 megalithic burials. But, only four structures exist now.
The Times of India reports that archaeologists at the University of Hyderabad campus have found small blades and knives that they dated to between 2400 and 1800 BC. They were excavated next to earthen pots, most of which were mangled. About 10 of the pots were in good enough condition for archaeologists to learn somewhat about the art of that time and place.
"The implements that were found were tested at the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) using a method called Optically Simulated Luminescence (OSL). The metal objects were dated to anywhere between 1800 BC and 2,400 BC. So we are assuming they were made during 2200 BC," Professor K.P. Rao told The Times. The OSL method estimates the last time objects were exposed to light. The idea of using abundant iron ore for tools and weapons is a landmark achievement. We are under the impression that most of the weapons which were made at that time were meant for self-defence, carpentry and agrarian purposes.”
This site is also believed to be the world’s oldest iron age site when it was found in 2003-4 by two of the universities History professors KP Rao and Aloka Parasher Sen. Set back the iron age by good 1000 years, dating it back roughly to 2795-2145 BCE. The iron age is generally considered to be from about 1,000 BCE
Here, there is a huge 20-tonne granite Menhir at this site. Menhir again for the untrained in archaeological terms is derived from old Brittonic: Maen or men, “stone” and hir or hîr, “long. Meaning a Long stone, usually placed on a place of burial. The Menhir goes beyond 20 ft in the air and is believed to go 20 ft below the ground too to give it the strength to ground itself.
Because of the threat of submergence of Pochampad and neighboring Iron Age megalithic sites in this locality by construction of a dam across the Godavari River, salvage efforts were carried out during field seasons between 1963 and 1967 under the supervision of M.A.W. Khan, then director of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Hyderabad (JAR 1963-1964: 1, 1964-1965: 1,1966-1967: 1). Faunal remains recovered from the burial site during the 1971 and 1972 field seasons were identified as domesticated species of sheep and goats (Capridae, Ovis vignei), cattle (Bos indicus), and horse (Equus cabalus) (AIur 1979).
REFERENCE :-
The South Deccan Iron Age: Antecedents to Early Historic Andhradeśa, Peter G. Johansen.
Iron Age Culture in South India: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, K.P. Rao.
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