Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the 6th millennium BCE. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India. The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian. The linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BCE. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been written shortly thereafter. Among Indian languages, Tamil has one of the ancient Indian literature besides others.