Black and red ware culture
The black and red ware culture is a late Bronze Age Indian and early Iron Age Indian archaeological culture, associated with the Indus Valley Civilisation and South India.
In the Western Ganges plain it is dated to c. 1450-1200 BCE, and is succeeded by the Painted Grey Ware culture; whereas in the Central and Eastern Ganges plain and Central India the BRW appears during the same period but continues for longer, until c. 700-500 BCE, when it is succeeded by the Northern Black Polished Ware culture.
In the Western Ganges plain, the BRW was preceded by the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture. The BRW sites were characterized by subsistence agriculture, and yielded some ornaments made of shell, copper, carnelian, and terracotta.
In some sites, particularly in eastern Punjab and Gujarat, BRW pottery is associated with Late Harappan pottery, and according to some scholars like Tribhuan N. Roy, the BRW may have directly influenced the Painted Grey Ware and Northern Black Polished Ware cultures. BRW pottery is unknown west of the Indus Valley.
Use of iron, although sparse at first, is relatively early, postdating the beginning of the Iron Age in Anatolia by only two or three centuries, and predating the European Iron Age by another two to three hundred years. Recent findings in Northern India show Iron working in the 1800-1000 BCE period. According to Shaffer, the "nature and context of the iron objects involved of the BRW culture are very different from early iron objects found in Southwest Asia."
