Prehistoric rock engravings and painting: New discoveries in Uttarakhand Himalaya

Research Link - An International Journal, 2015

Site is located 24 0 55' 55.09'' N latitudes and 81 0 03' 18.48'' E longitudes. This paper gives a detailed data of the large number of painted rock shelters of Dharkundi area. Each shelter has been described with respect to number of paintings of human, animals, flora, alpana, imagination etc. Which have been classified in detail Dharkundi rock shelters have been discovered in the newly Dharkundi rock shelter.

This paper is about a painted rock shelter from Banpur in North Karnapura rift valley, Jharkhand, explored in 2013 by the present author. The rock shelter of Banpur belongs to the clusters of rock art sites, within Satpahar mountain range in Chatra district. This paper presents the theme, style, and state of preservation of the rock art at the site. It is in the vicinity of other famous rock art sites like Satpahar, Thetangi, Saraiya and Kandhar, Sidpa, Gonda, Raham, etc. The rock shelter of Banpur has two panels with zoomorphic, Anthropomorphic and Geometric figures depicted in red ochre, yellow ochre white and black pigments. The superimposition can be easily identified and can be helpful in interpreting the chronology.

Itihas Darpan, 2021

Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology , 2024

Abstract: Skills deal with the ability to do things and techniques with ways of doing them. In this paper discussing Eastern Vindhyan rock art, documented from 2009 to 2023, we identify the chief skills and narrative techniques used in a sample of thirty shelters, in seven distinct groups. It is argued that distinctiveness is obtained by the chaine operatoire followed by artists making rock art. The use of shapes, colours, themes, surfaces, and contact material are discussed. Mesolithic to Neolithic paintings are often superimposed or juxtaposed with iron-age ones. Early historic, medieval, and colonial rock art is also found in the same caves. Learning of skills is evident from drawings made by children, youth, and young adults. While there is significant variability between sites, from one cluster to the next, this rock painting group has a distinct Eastern Vindhyan style.

There is a continuity of tradition of rock art from the prehistoric period followed by historical and medieval period. From direct superimpositoining of figure it is obvious that the use of liquid red paint/Geru paint is early and dark red and other colour is later. Within early materials, we believe that carefully painted figures in a thick, very dark red to rust coloured paint may be earlier than lighter coloured red figures, which seem to be more haphazardly painted with figure/plant brush/hair brush paints. However, as suggested by some of the scholar like V.S. Wakankar, E. Neumayer, Y. Mathpal and others, the most important basis for relative dating of the rock paintings is the study of the superimpositions.

Central Indian rock art is long known for its exceptional rock paintings; depicting crucial stages of human evolution in the subcontinent. The inception of its discovery was initiated by Carleylle from the Mirzapur region of Central India during the latter half of nineteenth century, the process continued till today. During the first part of the twenty first century a plethora of rock art site shave been discovered in India; particularly in Central India. It is relevant to mention here that the dataset is diverse and each rock art site has certain unique elements that other sites do not represent in their morphic record. However, the variations of the morphic details and nature of their occurrences in different rock shelters and even within the same group of rock-shelters have not been explored yet. The methodological rigor and sound documentation techniques brought to light several new sites in the region during a field survey of nine months between 2010 and 2012. New discoveries of painted rock-shelters enhanced the total number of archaeological sites found in the given region, but also this poses new challenges for the preservation and conservation of the archaeological sites for future research and posterity. This paper details a few new discoveries in the districts of Mirzapur and Rewa discussing their present and future importance in rock art research and archaeology in Central Indian context.

Proceeding of the National Seminar on River Valley Civilization of Chhattisgarh & New Researches in Indian Archaeology, 2012

From Megaliths to Maritime Landscapes: Perspectives on Indo-Pacific Archaeology. SEAMEO SPAFA. Bangkok. Pp. 157-177, 2024

While the study of rock art has been conventionally the concern of prehistory, much of its content in the Northern Vindhyas, India, is in the historical period and requires a historical interrogation. While the early Holocene rock art here is contextually associated with non or semi-geometric microliths and can be regarded as Upper Palaeolithic, the more emphatic, extensive, and skilled rock art exposition is during the Mesolithic. Mesolithic North Vindhyan rock art also has more geometric microliths, large numbers of shelter-dwellings, prepared stone-floors, human and faunal remains, corded incised handmade Mesolithic pottery, grinding stones and occasional and Iron Age tools. On the scarps, paintings of large antelopes, cattle, buffalo, elephants, rhinos, turtles, varanus, and smaller deer species dominate the Mesolithic, while neolithic-chalcolithic and Iron Age depictions contain more human figures, domesticated cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, and greater dress, hairstyle, self-images, palm-prints, iron-tools, three-dimensional perspectives, landscape simulations, superimpositions and narrative structure. Paintings show cognitively advanced choices in surface selection, the use of templates like three-dimensionality, perspective, and movement, in the selection and narrative rendering of historically oriented themes. Inter-group, identity-based differences between the several groups inhabiting the uplands and their conflicts are also represented. Historically structured materials like pastoral corrals, stelae, memorial stones, historical sculpture, and Brahmi inscriptions contextual to rock art, are found in the valleys and the foothills. Early historic trans-Indian trade routes occur in the Vindhyas and these routes are dotted with early historic inscriptions in the Brahmi script and its variants like Mauryan, Siddhamatrika, Shankha, proto-Nagari and Nagari. Their symbolic unity and continuity with upland symbolic traditions are many. Distinctly medieval rock art includes themes like soldiers, flag marches, hunting, and elephant capture by feudal lords. The final period of north Vindhyan rock art is colonial when paintings made by indigenes of the area depict the looting of colonial horse-carts and buggies after which rock art declines and disappears.