Well, doesn’t the Harappan civilization make a mess out of all this? Tin was nearby, and there’s evidence of bronze artifacts in all kinds of houses across the cities, and in general less evidence of hierarchical power, and certainly nothing like the concentration you see in other Bronze Age civilizations. We don’t have the civilization surviving as is to the Iron Age, because it depopulated before iron smelting became common. But it’s odd to make the claim bronze had to lead to stratified societies. Clearly, not always.
The generally agreed epoch of Mahabharata war (and also the start of kali yuga or iron age) among Vedic astrologers is about 3102 BC which places the epic deep into the Bronze age territory. Historians generally reject this epoch as it creates the dark age problem (over 2000 years of unexplained historical gap between that war and 500 BC when figures like Bimbisara, Buddha and Ajata Satru start appearing). Their epoch is in the range of 800-2000 BC depending on who you ask.
Having said that, there is nothing to make the bronze age epoch impossible. There is nothing in the epic which may not have been possible in the bronze age based on what we already know about history.
... The Mahabarta also says a woman was pregnant for 2 years after which she birthed a lifeless mass of flesh, cut it into 100 pieces, put it in ghee in jars, and incubated them into a 100 sons and 1 daughter...
this is definitely not possible in the bronze age or any other age for that matter from what we know of history.
randomImmigrant · · focus · HN ↗
pyeri · · focus · HN ↗
Having said that, there is nothing to make the bronze age epoch impossible. There is nothing in the epic which may not have been possible in the bronze age based on what we already know about history.
erklik · · focus · HN ↗
this is definitely not possible in the bronze age or any other age for that matter from what we know of history.