ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the lamination technique in artifacts from ancient India, highlights two broad groups of artifacts. It focuses on one pattern in the metallographic analyses of ancient iron artifacts the use of lamination as a production technique the potential such a pattern has for illuminating ancient metalworking practices, and our understanding of the nature of iron technology in ancient India. The chapter also focuses on artifacts associated with the Megalithic burial complexes of South India in order to explore how focusing on this production technique might enable archaeologists to begin uncovering social processes. One of the characteristics of the South Asian Iron Age is that it does not always follow an antecedent Bronze Age. From the current metallographic analyses, it is evident that not all iron workers used lamination. The emergence of iron technology in South Asia and specifically in India did so within its own unique cultural and societal contexts.
