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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Evaluate the introduction of iron technology in the development of human history of ancient India.

  • UPSC 2011
  • Period of Mahajanapadas

The advent of iron working in the subcontinent, discernible in archaeological contexts from roughly the second millennium BCE and widespread across most regions by 800-500 BCE, has long been treated as a hinge event in ancient Indian history — the technological precondition for the agrarian expansion, urban revival and state formation of the mahajanapada period.…

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What the full answer covers

  • The Material Case: Iron Across Agriculture, Craft, Warfare and Society
  • The Historiographical Debate: How Determining Was Iron?
  • An Enabling, Not a Sole, Cause

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