Did the Iron Age Begin in Tamil Nadu? (opens in new tab)

I believe the idea events of this nature have single origin are flawed. Yes, there are examples. No, I don't think achieving the higher temperatures to smelt iron ore was a single origin event. Use of fire prior to the iron age was too widespread as was lower temperature metalworking, and some cultures had access to meteoric iron and bog iron.

But that said, pushing back the date is awesome. And of course if pre iron age trade links with Indus Valley culture exist there's a distribution story. But, iron would be so significantly valuable either just in its own right as trade goods, or as IPR for trade, we would surely have the dispersal evidence.

The fact that three different labs, including one based in America, agreed on the radio dating, lends a lot of credibility to this discovery. I wonder if this also changes assumptions on where some technologies originated and how they spread, and if that in turn changes the understanding of human migrations.

> However, according to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin, the new findings push the introduction of iron in the Tamil landscape back 5,300 years.

This is unrelated, but is “Stalin” a common name in India? I thought it was a Russian last name that is now taboo in terms of real life usage because of Joseph Stalin.