EARLIEST ROCK ART AND SIGNS OF CIVILIZATION FROM INDIA

BHIMBETKA ROCK SHELTERS

In a place called Bhimbetka there are a total of 750 caves and shelters spread over a 10-x-4 kilometer area. The caves depict paintings belonging to the Paleolithic (10,000 B.C.), Mesolithic (5,000 B.C.) and the Chalcolithic (2,000 B.C.) periods. The Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka are in the foothills of the Vindhyan Mountains on the southern edge of the central Indian plateau. Within massive sandstone outcrops, above comparatively dense forest, are five clusters of natural rock shelters, displaying paintings that appear to date from the Mesolithic Period right through to the historical period. The cultural traditions of the inhabitants of the twenty-one villages adjacent to the site bear a strong resemblance to those represented in the rock paintings. [Source: UNESCO World Heritage Site website]

Bhimbetka reflects a long interaction between people and the landscape, as demonstrated in the quantity and quality of its rock art. It is closely associated with a hunting and gathering economy as demonstrated in the rock art and in the relicts of this tradition in the local adivasi villages on the periphery of this site.

The nominated Bhimbetka rock shelters site lies within the Vindhyan Hills, an area of massively sculpted sandstone rock formations clustered around Bhimbetka Hill. The area has abundant natural resources - perennial water supplies, natural shelter, rich forest flora and fauna, and these conditions of plenty seem to have been conducive to the development of sustainable and persistent societies and the creation of notable rock art.

The site includes five clusters of rock shelters, with one large complex in the buffer zone. The rock shelters display persistent traditions of rock painting, spanning periods from the Mesolithic to the Historic. They also display a profusion, richness and variety of mural subjects and, as a collection, form one of the densest known concentrations of rock art. Many of the rock shelters within the area are set within fairly dense forest, which displays a high diversity of flora and fauna, still harvested by the local people. Overall the landscape has a strong appealing aesthetic quality, derived from the beauty of the naturally sculpted rock formations and the contrasting lush, densely wooded vegetation, which together give the place a 'timeless' quality.

The site complex was discovered by V. S. Wakankar in 1957. Almost 100 years earlier, in 1867, rock paintings had been discovered in Uttar Pradesh and the first scientific article on Indian rock paintings was published by J. Cockburn in 1883. Bhimbetka was first mentioned in 1888 as a Buddhist site, from information obtained from local adivasis. Two shelters were excavated in 1971 by Bajpai, Pandey and Gour. [Source: UNESCO World Heritage Site website]

Drawings and Paintings in Bhimbetka

The most famous place in Bhimbetka is Zoo Rock where one can see paintings dating back to 10,000 B.C. made with limestone and also some paintings made between 5,000 years and 7,000 years ago with vegetable colors and iron. The Zoo Rock depicts a variety of animals from horses to elephants and from bulls to antelopes. There is a distinct difference in the paintings made in 10,000 B.C. and those made in 5,000 B.C. It makes one wonder if the animals themselves evolved or was it that man just became a better artist.There are also caves that depict paintings of man’s daily life thousands of years ago. You have paintings showing group dance and others depicting hunting scenes. [Source: Glorious India]

Some caves have paintings, which date back to 2,000 B.C. Here, man is shown wearing clothes and the weapons are more sophisticated. The paintings too have improved. For instance, while horses were shown as nothing but line sketches in the 10,000 B.C. paintings, a horse painted in 2,000 B.C. The superimposition of paintings shows that the same canvas was used by different people at different times.

The drawings and paintings can be classified under seven different periods: Period I - (Upper Paleolithic): These are linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge figures of animals such as bisons, tigers, and rhinoceroses. Period II - (Mesolithic): Comparatively small in size, the stylised figures in this group show linear decoration on the body. In addition to animals, there are human figures and hunting scenes, giving a clear picture of the weapons they used: barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows. The depiction of communal dances, birds, musical instruments, mother and child, pregnant women, men carrying dead animals, drinking and burials appear in rhythmic movement. Period III - (Chaleolithic): Similar to the paintings of Chaleolithic pottery, these drawings reveal that during the period the cave dwellers of this area had come in contact with the agricultural communities of the Malwa plains and started an exchange of their requirements with each other. [Source: Glorious India]

Period IV & V - (Early Historic): The figures of this group have a schematic and decorative style, and are painted mainly in red, white and yellow. The association is of riders, depiction of religious symbols, tunic-like dresses and the existence of scripts of different periods. The religious beliefs are represented by figures of yakshas, tree gods and magical sky chariots. Period Vl & Vll - (Medieval): These paintings are geometric, linear and more schematic, but they show degeneration and crudeness in their artistic style.

The colours used by the cave dwellers were prepared combining manganese, haematite, soft red stone and wooden coal. Sometimes the fat of animals and extracts of leaves were also used in the mixture. The colours have remained intact for many centuries due to the chemical reaction resulting from the oxide present on the surface of the rocks.

Pachmari Hills

Rock paintings and images dated to 9000-3000 B.C. have been found in the Pachmari Hills in the Satpura Range of Central India, an area rich with caves, gorges, rock shelters, and lush vegetation. Laura Anne Tedesco of the Department of Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote: Many of the sandstone rock shelters across this area have been decorated along the ceilings and walls with paintings depicting a wide range of subjects. The tradition of rock painting extends as far back as the Mesolithic (ca. 9000–3000 B.C.) into the early medieval historic period. Images of vegetation and animals indigenous to this region of South Asia are among the most commonly portrayed, indicating the importance of these resources to the earliest hunter-gatherer occupants of the shelters. [Source: Laura Anne Tedesco, Department of Education, The Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Game animals such as bulls, bison, elephants, and wild boar are depicted along with images of lizards, fish, scorpions and birds, such as peacocks. Humans are typically represented as hunters using spears, sticks, and bows and arrows. Female human figures are only occasionally shown in the earliest paintings, though they appear more frequently in later images. The pigments used to create the paintings were derived from naturally occurring materials such as hematite, iron oxide, and kaolin. Variations in color were achieved by mixing the darker pigments with white kaolin (ground limestone). While the majority of paintings in the Pachmari Hills are from historic periods, the earliest Mesolithic depictions provide visually rich and compelling images of the natural environment and some aspects of Mesolithic life.

Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh is a Neolithic and Chalcolithic archaeological site on the Kachi Plain of Baluchistan, Pakistan. Dating from about 7000 to 2500 B.C., it is one of the earliest known sites in South Asia with evidence of farming and herding. People at Mehrgarh cultivated wheat and barley and raised cattle, sheep, and goats. The site was located along an important route between present-day Afghanistan and the Indus Valley.

The site consists of several low archaeological mounds near the mouth of the Bolan Pass, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Sibi. It covers about 250 hectares (618 acres), although much of the archaeological material is buried beneath layers of alluvium. Exposed remains include large structures made from hand-formed, plano-convex mud bricks. These buildings were divided into compartments, many of which are thought to have been used for storage rather than housing. The mounds MR3 and MR1 also contain formal cemeteries, parts of which have been excavated. [Source: Department of Archaeology and Museums of India; Glorious India]

Archaeological deposits at Mehrgarh are more than 11 meters (36 feet) deep and span the seventh to third millennia B.C. The site developed as a tell, an artificial mound formed by generations of buildings constructed over earlier structures. The earliest occupation is associated with Mound MR3 and dates to about 6500 B.C. Later, the main settlement shifted to MR4 and then to other parts of the site. By about 2600 B.C., settlement activity had shifted to Naushero, about 6 kilometers (4 miles) south.

During its development, Mehrgarh changed from a settlement with small mud-brick storage structures and evidence of cattle and barley domestication into a substantial Bronze Age village with specialized crafts. Some researchers have interpreted the absence of early residential buildings as evidence that mobile or seasonally traveling groups used the site during its earliest period. Although Mehrgarh was abandoned before the urban phase of the Indus Civilization, its development provides evidence for changes in agriculture, animal herding, crafts, and trade.

Mehrgarh was abandoned around 2500 B.C. and was later covered by alluvial sediment. A flash flood exposed parts of the site in the 1970s. The French Archaeological Mission to Pakistan excavated Mehrgarh for 13 years between 1974 and 1986 and resumed work in 1996. Recent excavations have uncovered exceptionally well-preserved mud-brick structures.

Settlements and Life in Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh is important because it shows the gradual development of an early village society into a regional center covering about 200 hectares (494 acres). It was also a center for producing figurines and pottery that were distributed to surrounding areas. People lived in houses and practiced hunting, animal domestication, and farming. They used stone and bone tools, including polished stone axes, flint blades, and bone points. Hand-made pottery appeared by about 6000 B.C., while metallurgy and the potter's wheel were introduced during the 5th millennium B.C. [Sources: Glorious India; Dawn, February 19, 2005]

Mehrgarh's people produced terra-cotta figurines and pottery decorated with geometric designs. They also made and wore ornaments from beads, seashells, and semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli. Archaeological research indicates that bone was used to make tools for farming and textile production, and there is evidence of cotton use. The remains also show that the people had developed architectural techniques and participated in trade.

Most of the ruins are buried beneath alluvial deposits, although some structures are visible where they have been exposed by erosion. Excavations have uncovered large mud-brick structures divided into compartments. These buildings were made from hand-formed, plano-convex bricks, and many of the compartments are thought to have been used for storage rather than housing. Some mounds also contain formal cemeteries.

Archaeological research at Mehrgarh was led by Jean-François Jarrige, an archaeologist and director of the Musée Guimet in Paris. Jarrige said that ceramics found at the site included examples that may date to the 8th millennium B.C. He considered the evidence important for understanding the connection between Mehrgarh and the later Indus Civilization. According to Jarrige, the development of Mehrgarh also provides evidence about the civilization's subsistence, crafts, and trade.

Jarrige also reported that skeletons from the site indicated that people at the time were taller than those of later periods. He described the architecture as well developed and said there were indications of rice as a staple food and of trade activity. Archaeological work was disrupted after the site was vandalized during a conflict between two local tribes. Jarrige also expressed concern about Mehrgarh antiquities being sold on the market and called for stronger efforts to protect them as part of humanity's shared heritage.

Early Agriculture in India

In the period of the Neolithic revolution, roughly 8000-4000 B.C., agriculture was far from the dominant mode of support for human societies. Agro pastoralism in India included threshing, planting crops in rows—either of two or of six—and storing grain in granaries.Barley and wheat cultivation—along with the rearing of cattle, sheep and goat—was visible in Mehrgarh by 8000-6000 B.C. [Source: Wikipedia +]

According to Gangal et al. (2014), there is strong archeological and geographical evidence that neolithic farming spread from the Near East into north-west India. Yet, Jean-Francois Jarrige argues for an independent origin of Mehrgarh. Jarrige notes the similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. Nevertheless, Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background," and is not a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East."Singh et al. (2016) investigated the distribution of J2a-M410 and J2b-M102 in South Asia, which "suggested a complex scenario that cannot be explained by a single wave of agricultural expansion from Near East to South Asia," but also note that "regardless of the complexity of dispersal, NW region appears to be the corridor for entry of these haplogroups into India." +

Oldest Known Dentistry, in Mehrgarh

The first known dental work was done 9,000 years ago at Mehrgarh, a Neolithic villages in present-day Pakistan. Nine individuals from a sample of 300 buried in graves dating from 5500 to 7000 B.C. Had holes drilled in their molars. David Frayer, a professor of anthropology from the University of Kansas, wrote in Natural History, “This is certainly the first case of drilling a person’s teeth. But even more significant this practice lasted 1,500 years and was a tradition at this site. It wasn’t just a sporadic event.” The oldest recorded dentistry before the discovery was found in Denmark and dated to 3000 B.C.

The discovery was reported in an article in Nature by Roberto Macciarelli of the University of Pontiers in France. “Four teeth show signs of decay associated with the hole, indicating that the intervention in some cases could have been therapeutic or palliative,” he said. No evidence of a filling was found but it is possible that there could have been something that decayed away.

The drilling was done to molars in both the upper and lower jaws to adults. In four of the cases the teeth appeared to have been drilled where the teeth had rotted but in the other cases no tooth rot was present. The holes were between a half millimeter and 3.5 millimeters deep. They appear to not have been done for aesthetic reason because the holes way out of view.

The drilling is believed to have been performed with a flint point spun with a bow. An experimental reconstruction of the probable method involved a small thin piece of flint attached to a bone.

Judging from the angle of the holes they were not self made and because the people who had the dental work were performed on them were not buried in special graves it appears that dentistry was available to anyone and was not just the provenance of the rich. One of the individuals had three molars drilled. Another had one molar drilled twice.

Advent of Metals in India

Rama Shankar Tripathi wrote: After many centuries, perhaps, the neolithic man in India learnt the use of metals. Gold was probably his earliest discovery, but it served as a material for ornaments only. His implements and weapons were made of other harder metals. The remarkable finds in a large number of ancient sites prove that in South India stone was directly superseded by iron, whereas in North India axes, awls, swords, spearheads, daggers, harpoons, etc., were at first made of copper, and it was in turn followed by iron. Hoards of such copper implements have been discovered “all across Northern India almost from the Hooghly to the far side of the Indus, and from the foot of the Himalayas to the Cawnpore District.” [Source: “History of Ancient India” by Rama Shankar Tripathi , Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture, Benares Hindu University, 1942]

The times when the use of these metals became general are known as the Iron and Copper ages. It is, however, important to remember that, unlike other countries, there are no traces in India, except in Sind, of a Bronze Period intervening between the Neolithic and Iron ages. Bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin, is harder than pure copper, and is doubtless better suited for the manufacture of weapons, but the early men in India somehow did not make it the ordinary material for use. The few implements of this metal, that have been discovered in Jubbulpur, were, in the opinion of antiquarians, either experimental or of foreign origin. And bowls and other objects, found in South Indian cemeteries, were simply articles of luxury meant for domestic purposes, and would hardly indicate the existence of an age when bronze tools were commonly used.

So far we were almost groping in the dark. We now see the twilight of Indian civilisation. The remarkable archeological discoveries at Harappa in the Montgomery district and Mohenjo-daro in the Larkana district, besides other sites in the Punjab, Sind (like Canhudaro, Jhukar-daro), and Baluchistan (e.g., Nal, Kelat State), make it abundantly clear that several centuries before the period of the Kigveda, there were busy centres of life and activity along the course of the river Indus. They show that the people possessed a high degree of culture, which was similar to, and in many respects more advanced than that of contemporary Mesopotamia, Elam, and Egypt. Chalcolithic is the name usually given to this age — an age “in which arms and utensils of stone continue to be used side by side with those of copper and bronze.” To get a glimpse into this remote past, we must take note of the relics unearthed at Mohenjodaro, which are essentially akin to those found at other places. The picture may be dim, but the outlines are sufficiently firm.

Products from Ancient India That Made Their Way to Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

Smelting ore probably began in China or India and made its way westward. Much of the copper in ancient civilization in Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece and Rome came from Cyprus, whose name is the source of the word copper. To melt copper out the rock it is necessary to keep a fire at least 1981°F (1083°C). This was most likely done in ancient Copper Age sites by continuously blowing a fire through tubes made from wood, bamboo or reeds. Archaeologists recreating the process need about an hour of constant blowing to produced several copper pellets the size of BBs. Producing copper for an ax using this method would take several weeks.

Cucumbers were known in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. They originated in the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India, where they have been cultivated for more than 3,000 years. Blue India dye is derived from a blue powder extracted from the “indigofera” plant. The dye was known to the Greeks and Romans and used by Egyptians to dye mummy cases.

The ancient Egyptians obtained goods from India and China. A strand of silk has been found on a 3000-year-old Egyptian mummy. This astonishing discovery provides evidence of trade between ancient China and the Mediterranean 1,800 years before Marco Polo traveled the famed Silk Road.

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Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated March 2022