A. Uesugi (ed.) Iron Age in South Asia. B. Research Group for South Asian Archaeology, Archaeological Research Institute, Kansai University, Osaka, 2018 [ISBN 978- 4-9909150-1-8]

Abstract

More than 20 years ago, Gregory L. Possehl and Praavena Gullapalli, in an important review essay entitled “The Early Iron Age in South Asia” (1999: 153), part of an excellent general comparative volume on the archaeometallurgy of southern Eurasia (Piggot 1999) wrote what follows: “[...] regional manifestations [like the late Bronze age cultures of Swat, the Painted Grey Ware, the Pirak assemblage, and the Megalithic complex: note by the authors] are seen as possible outgrowths of a series of local Bronze Age traditions that seemed to have an awareness of iron. An adequate understanding of the technological processes involved in the production of early iron will yeld much information regarding the transition to the Iron Age, but such an understanding has yet to be reached”.