Chronology of Indian prehistory from the Mesolithic period to the Iron Age

In the last decade and a half, about one thousand ¹⁴C dates have become available for Indian archaeology. As a result, the Mesolithic, the Neolithic, the Harappan, the Chalcolithic and the Iron Age cultures of India have now been well dated. This paper discussed not only the chronologies of these cultures but also their other implications. A detailed discussion of the chronology leads one to discern a disparate socio-economic development in the different ecological zones of the country. There has not been a unilineal evolution in India; ecology has played an important role in the prehistoric cultural pattern. Different groups of cultures betray a characteristic ecological bias. On the whole, new technologies have started later in India than in west Asia. Again, urbanization is not a chronological evolution in India, but very much determined by the available technology. Copper technology gave birth to the Harappan culture in the Indus Valley in the third millennium B.C. On the other hand, the Gangetic Doab was urbanised only in the first millennium B.C.-this time the base was iron technology. In short, this is not an enumeration of ¹⁴C dates but an attempt to understand the cultural pattern using chronology as a tool.