Iron and RV dating

[Steve Farmer]

Rajarashi Banerjee writes:

> Isolated finds of iron are as early as 1400 BC.
>
> http://www.rediff.com/news/jan/23iron.htm is just an example beware of type
> errors .

The old UNI news report that you offer as "just an example" of
your evidence claims that iron was found in India c. 3200 BCE,
not just c. 1400 BCE. If this old journalist's tale has any truth
at all (recall that in July 1999 UNI broke the "news" that N. S.
Rajaram deciphered "pre-Harappan" texts) it refers to meteoric
and not mined iron. Isolated finds of worked iron from meteoric
sources are quite common at very early dates throughout the old
world. Such finds have nothing at all to do with the questions at issue.

The story claims that the excavations revealed the "presence of
iron as far back as 3200 BC, conclusively indicating that the
Iron Age began at least 400 years before hiterto believed."

The Iron Age c. 3200 BCE, or 400 years earlier? What's a few
thousand years off among friends?

UNI reports don't qualify as historical evidence.