Was mahabharata written in ancient days?

The Mahabharata is the longest form of poetry - so it was ONLY oral poetry till the 6th century BC or till maybe 3rd century BC and mixed several generations of true and fictional stories as one sequence of events and inflated it with mythology and hyperbole, Any relation between actual events in real world and Mahabharata are only dramatic exaggerations meant a Memorization aids. Literacy did not really take off in India till 6th cent BC and the fact that all Indian languages have scripts now is something Indians have to Thank both Buddhist Missionaries and Achaemenid Parsa rulers for ( Koresh( Kuru-Kshahiya/Cyrus) and Daryavahu(Dara-bahu/Darius) ). The fact that both VedaVyasa and Valmiki were considered originally outcaste is enough evidence they were actually LITERATE Buddhist Bhikkus who were of semi tribal background who were rewarded to put these pieces of poetry into Writing , likely by a Hindu Rulers of the Kuru & Ikhsvaku clans who realized literacy was catching up . The actual events of the Mahabharata are likely the large inter clan warfare among the various Indo-Aryan Tribes and their neighboring fiefdoms separated over several generations and centuries woven into one myth/legend with lot of imagination and fanciful tales added for dramatism . Also the oldest known syllabary in India Brahmi was not directly derived from Aramaic , but almost certainly inspired by it and the Kharosthi script. Brahmi is a syllabary( much better for pronouncing words) whereas Aramaic and Kharosti are alphabetic with implicit vowel endings where one had to know the language before making sense of it. There is also a second and somewhat credible line of thought that Traders in the Indian Ocean trade with Red sea area created these syllabic scripts after long term contact with long literate Phoenician Sailors to prevent errors in pronunciation of items and transactions of trade and that Brahmi was inspired by scripts like ancient Ethiopic scripts.

Almost all scholars of History agree that King Parikshita who arranged for an oral recitation of the events lived between 11 and 13th century BC. Even if 30% of events were true after discounting the fanciful legends and myths and supernatural hyperbole, then it places these events sometime between 1700 BC to 1300 BC for some of the stuff that seems realistic.