Early ironworking in Iron Age South India: New evidence for the social organization of production from northern Karnataka

Abstract

Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian Iron Age (ca. 1200-300 B.C.), yet the investigation of the social relations of metals production during this period has been overshadowed by studies of iron consumption, particularly of iron objects in megalithic mortuary contexts. Recent archaeological research in the Tungabhadra River Corridor, Karnataka, has revealed iron production debris within and between settlements in more ephemeral occupational contexts, such as rockshelters. One notable discovery is the earliest ironworking facility in South India at Bukkasagara. The regional pattern suggests that iron production involved at least two classes of specialist producerssmelters and smiths-who exercised varying degrees of control over the practice and products of their craft. It also suggests that iron production was an important component in the construction and negotiation of Iron Age social differences, affiliations, and inequalities.

Beyond culture history at Maski: Land use, settlement and social differences in Neolithic through Medieval South India

“…All evidence so far recorded at these sites suggests that iron-working activities were restricted to the smithing and forging of iron bloom rather than the smelting of raw ores. At three of these sites there is clear evidence for spatially discrete iron working areas within or directly adjacent to residential deposits, in much the same way as those we have recorded in the Tungabhadra region (Johansen, 2014). This patterning further suggests that at some of these small Iron Age settlement communities iron-working activities were spatially and socially circumscribed, creating spaces that were socially differentiated by occupational specialization.…”

Anvil Age Economy: A Map of the Spread of Iron Metallurgy across Afro-Eurasia

“…The discovery of tempering, quenching, and carburization (for low-carbon steel) encouraged the transition as these techniques narrowed the quality gap between bronze and iron sword blades. It is possible the methods first came from India, where they had been known from very early times (Johansen 2014), but they may have been developed in other locations independently. The most important catalyst for change in Southwest Asia was the military success of the Kingdom of Urartu in eastern Anatolia (Sergey Nefedov 2019, pers.…”

9 Questioning a Posthumanist Political Ecology: Ontologies, Environmental Materialities, and the Political in Iron Age South India

“…Recent radiocarbon results from megalithic contexts at Maski (central Karnataka), for instance, suggest that labor‐intensive mortuary rituals became important cultural contexts for generating a variety of new social affiliations and distinctions by at least 1200 BCE as greater numbers participated in the production of commemorative places (Bauer and Johansen ). In addition to such mortuary and commemorative remains, excavations at the large Iron Age settlement of Kadebakele (central Karnataka), as well as systematic survey and surface collections of prehistoric settlements in its vicinity, have highlighted other evidence for emerging social distinctions during the period, such as symbolically distinct and spatially segregated residential zones within settlements and differential consumption practices among settlement populations (see Bauer , ; Bauer, Johansen, and Bauer ; Johansen , ; Morrison, Reddy, and Kashyap ; Sinopoli ; Wilcox ). In short, a variety of evidence suggests that new forms of social differences and inequalities were created during the Iron Age, having developed from ostensibly egalitarian conditions of the earlier Neolithic period (Figure ).…”