Map of early Iron Age Vedic India (ca. 9th c. BC). ealms or tribes are labelled black, non-Indo-Aryan tribes mentioned in early Vedic texts purple, Vedic shakhas in green. Rivers are labelled blue. The Thar desert is marked orange.

The Painted Gray Ware culture (ca 1200-800 BCE) and the Northern Black Polished Ware culture (ca 700-300 BCE) belong to the "Regionalization Era" of the Indo-Gangetic Tradition. This corresponds to the later phase of the Vedic period and Mahajanapadas and the rise of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka the Great belong to this period.

The earliest Iron Age site in South India is Hallur.

India enters the classical period from the 6th century BC with the births of Mahavira and Gautama Buddha, followed by the Sanskrit grammar of Panini, the Edicts of Ashoka, and the emerging Middle kingdoms of India.

References

• Kenoyer, J.M. 1998 Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press and American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Karachi.
• Kenoyer, J. M. 1991a The Indus Valley Tradition of Pakistan and Western India. In Journal of World Prehistory 5(4): 331-385.
• Kenoyer, J. M. 1995a Interaction Systems, Specialized Crafts and Culture Change: The Indus Valley Tradition and the Indo-Gangetic Tradition in South Asia. In The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, edited by G. Erdosy, pp. 213-257. Berlin, W. DeGruyter.
• Shaffer, J. G. 1992 The Indus Valley, Baluchistan and Helmand Traditions: Neolithic Through Bronze Age. In Chronologies in Old Worlsfgagd Archaeology (3rd Edition), edited by R. Ehrich, pp. 441-464. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

See also

• Kingdoms of ancient India
• Mahajanapadas
• Maurya Empire
• Iron Age China

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