The Bronze Age in South Asia begins around 3000 BC (Harappan 1) in North India, and in the gives rise to the Indus Valley Civilization, which had its mature period between 2600 BC and 1900 BC. It is succeeded by the Indian Iron Age, beginning around 1000 BC.
South India, by contrast, remains in the Mesolithic stage until about 2500 BC.
In the 2nd millennium BC, there may have been cultural contact between North and South India, even though South India skips a Bronze Age proper and enters the Iron Age from the Chalcolithic stage directly. In February, 2006, a school teacher in the village of Sembian-Kandiyur near Mayiladuthurai in Nagapattinam District, Tamil Nadu discovered a stone celt with an inscription estimated to be up to 3,500 years old. Indian epigrahist Iravatham Mahadevan postulated that the writing was in Indus script and called the find "the greatest archaeological discovery of a century in Tamil Nadu".