PREHISTORIC

ROCK PAINTINGS

The distant past when there was no paperor language or the written word and hence nobooks or written documents, is called prehistoryor as we often say prehistoric times. How peoplelived in those times was difficult to surmise untilscholars began to discover the places whereprehistoric people lived. Excavation at theseplace brought to light old tools, pottery, habitats,bones of ancient human beings and animals anddrawings on cave walls. By piecing together theinformation deduced from these objects and thecave drawings, scholars have constructed fairlyaccurate knowledge about what happened andhow people lived in prehistoric times. When thebasic needs of food, water, clothing and shelterwere fulfilled people felt the need to expressthemselves. Painting and drawing were theoldest art forms practised by human beings toexpress themselves, using the cave walls as theircanvas.

Why did prehistoric people draw thesepictures? They may have drawn and painted tomake their homes more colourful and beautifulor to keep a visual record of their day-to-daylife, like some of us who maintain a diary.

The prehistoric period in the earlydevelopment of human beings is commonly knownas the Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic Age.

Prehistoric paintings have been found inmany parts of the world. We do not really knowif Lower Paleolithic people ever produced anyart objects. But by the Upper Paleolithic timeswe see a proliferation of artistic activities.Around the world the walls of many caves ofthis time are full of finely carved and paintedpictures of animals which the cave-dwellershunted. The subjects of their drawings werehuman figures, human activities, geometricdesigns and symbols. In India the earliestpaintings have been reported from the UpperPalaeolithic times.

It is interesting to know that the firstdiscovery of paintings was made in India in1867-68 by an archaeologist, Archibald Carlleyle,

twelve years before the discovery of Altamira inSpain. Cockburn, Anderson and Ghosh were theearly archaeologists who discovered a largenumber of sites in the Indian sub-continent.

Remnants of rock paintings have been foundon the walls of the caves situated in severaldistricts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar. Somepaintings have been reported from the Kumaohills Uttarakhand also. The rock shelters onbanks of the River Suyal at Lakhudiyar abouttwenty kilometres on the Almora-Barechinaroad, bear these prehistoric paintings.Lakhudiyar literally means one lakh caves. Thepaintings here can be divided into threecategories: man, animal and geometric patternsin white, black, red and ochre. Humans arerepresented in stick like forms. A long snoutedanimal, a fox and a multiple legged lizard arethe main animal motifs. Wavy lines, rectanglefilled geometric designs and groups of dots canalso be seen here. One of the interesting scenesdepicted here is of hand-linked dancing humanfigures. There is some superimposition ofpaintings. The earliest are in black; over theseare red ochre paintings and the last groupcomprises white paintings. From Kashmir twoslabs with engravings have been reported. Thegranite rocks of Karnataka and Andhra Pradeshprovided suitable canvases to the Neolithic manfor his paintings. There are several such sites butmore famous among them are Kupgallu, Piklihaland Tekkalkota. Three types of paintings havebeen reported from here-paintings in white,paintings in red, ochre over a white backgroundand paintings in red ochre. These paintingsbelong to late historical, early historical andNeolithic periods. The subjects depicted are bulls,elephants, sambhars, gazelles, sheep, goats,horses, stylized humans tridents, but rarely,vegetal motifs.

But the richest paintings are reported fromthe Vindhya ranges of Madhya Pradesh and theirKaimurean extensions into Uttar Pradesh. Thesehill ranges are full of Paleolithic and Mesolithicremains and they are also full of forests, wild