Abstract: A report of the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology published radiometric dates suggesting that the Iron Age began there at least a millennium earlier than previously recognised with some of the earliest dates for finds of iron worldwide. As an archaeometallurgist involved in the analyses, the speaker explores this premise to point to the potentially groundbreaking implications, given that the dates came from the leading AMS dating laboratory in the world. At least three or four dates from coastal urn burial sites of Sivagalai and Adichanallur along the Tambaraparani river go back before 2500 BCE, i.e. coeval with the Harappan Bronze Age. However, Tamil Nadu had not shown prior evidence of a logical developmental progression of copper smelting preceding iron smelting: with no marked Copper or Bronze Age intervening between the Neolithic and Iron Ages. The speaker proposes a resolution to this conundrum through the scenario that Harappan copper smelters could have migrated along the coast to this region, and then with copper ores being less prevalent in Tamil Nadu, may have experimented with more readily available iron ores to have developed and pioneered iron smelting here (even as iron was not in vogue in the Harappan regions). This is not farfetched considering that urn burial practices at these sites ultimately hark back to pot or urn burial practices at Indus sites including Harappa (as reported by the speaker in Frontline, Feb 2025). Indeed, an enigmatic female metal figurine that Alexander Rea unearthed at Adichannallur uncannily resembled the Harappan terracotta ‘mother goddesses’. The recently excavated copper-bronze animal figurines also resemble the Indus repertoire. In fact, several pieces in the jigsaw fit if we consider that the use of iron could have spread from southern Tamil Nadu further inland and north into the Deccan, yielding later dates there and with iron tools then being progressively used to shape megaliths of hard stone. The rather distinctive finds of metal vessels with finials and animal figurines at Adichanallur, imitating lidded ceramic Harappan burial urns, and also in terracotta from Nilgiris further upland in Tamil Nadu, make sense when we see them as a throwback to the earlier theme of Harappan urn burials. The speaker also points to the case for an old coastal route from the Roman accounts of Pliny to ‘Tabropane’ which had been thought to refer to Sri Lanka but may well refer to Tambarapayani (the colloquial name for Tambarabarani/Porunai river) and the region of coastal Tamil Nadu, especially considering that far more Roman coins have been found in Tamil Nadu than in Sri Lanka.
About the speaker: Prof Sharada Srinivasan is author of India’s Legendary Wootz Steel and international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.