Where Did the Iron Age Begin?

CHENNAI, INDIA—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. To read more about the Indus Valley civilization, go to "A Plot of Their Own."