Urban Iron Age archaeological culture of the Ganges plain, marked by a fine glossy black pottery, that succeeded the Painted Grey Ware culture and coincided with the rise of the sixteen Mahajanapadas and the lifetime of the Buddha.
Its horizon closes as the great territorial states (Magadha, then the Mauryan Empire) consolidate the Ganges plain into large empires.
Standard scholarly survey covering the Vedic-to-Mauryan Ganges plain, including the NBPW archaeological horizon and the Mahajanapadas it coincides with.