Context: The Rock art sites of the Chambal Valley have been included in the UNESCO’s Tentative list of World Heritage Sites.
About Chambal Site:
(Battle scene, on a rock painting from Chambal Valley)
- Chambal Basin and Central India region contain the largest concentration of known rock art sites in the world.
- Rock art sites have thrived in the hilly areas: Vindhyan, Satpura, and Kaimur ranges.
- These rock art sites are from: Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Megalithic, and Proto Historic periods.
- Currently, only Chaturbhujnath Nala is partially protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
- Chambal River:
- Known as Charmavati in ancient times, it originates from the Malwa trap zone.
- Covers: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
- Earliest traces of human habitation in the region are Acheulean tools, including cleavers, hand axes, scrapers, cores, have been found here.
- Chambal basin rock art includes: Cupules, with the oldest ones found at Darki, Madhya Pradesh.
Note:
- Rock cupules are artificially made depressions on rock surfaces that resemble the shape of an inverse spherical cap or dome.
- They were made by direct percussion with hand-held hammer-stones, on vertical, sloping or horizontal rock surfaces.
- Petroglyphs (cupules) discovered at Chattaneshwar and Kanyadeh (Rajasthan).
- Bhanpura (Madhya Pradesh) area also boasts a significant collection of petroglyphs.
- Engraved ostrich egg shells found at Chandrasel in Kota district (Rajasthan) date back approximately 40,000 years B.P.
- Rock art themes during the Mesolithic period:
- Scenes from the lives of simple hunting and gathering societies.
- Painted animals in this period were adorned with abstract designs like triangles.
- Bichrome paintings (in two colours) were a notable feature of Mesolithic rock art.
- Chalcolithic period:
- Pastoralism and cattle herding became prominent themes
- Economic importance of Humped cattle: It is appearing in about ninety percent of the rock art depictions.
- Cattle were also depicted in other art forms like terracotta bull figures, seals, and sealings.
- Red and its variants were the most commonly used pigments.
- Chalcolithic sites in Chambal basin:
- Ahar (Rajasthan), Kayatha (Madhya Pradesh) and Malwa (Malwa region of Central India and parts of Maharashtra in the Deccan Peninsula.
- Ahar culture, dating around 3600-1500 B.C.E., is believed to be the first to settle in the Basin and establish settlements.
- Ahar culture sites: Balathal, Gilund, and Ojiyana (Rajasthan).
- Not much information about the rock paintings from the Megalithic phase have been found:
- However, a few dolmens with cup marks have been discovered.
- Also, cup marks were found on the capstones of dolmens and on boulders within stone circles from the Kotra Vihar (Madhya Pradesh).
- Early Historical period:
- Rock art is typically found in isolated locations near perennial water sources.
- These locations also contain remnants of ancient temples or mounds from this historical era.
- Many of these sites have temples dedicated to deities like Shiva or mother goddesses.
- Significant social, political, and economic change:
- Establishment of states, organized religions, and the use of written scripts, all of which are reflected in the rock art of this era.
- Rock art from this period is work of warriors, war refugees, elite hunters, or local tribal communities who sought refuge or temporary shelter in these rock shelters during wars or hunting expeditions.
- Symbols and designs with religious significance in rock art: fire altars, kalashas, swastikas, triratna, and alpana patterns.
- Art reflects themes and designs from local traditions, including rangoli patterns and depictions of human forms.
- Rock art includes representations of Hindu deities like Ganesha, Rama.
- Religious Sites in the Chambal Basin: Bhimlat Mahadev, Chatturbhuj Nath Nala, Garadia Mahadev, Bukki Mata, Chattaneshwar, Kanyadeh, Narsinghgarh, Kotra Vihar Jogania Mata, and Gepadnath.
Mesolithic Culture:
- Mesolithic sites are found in most parts of India.
- Sites: Paisra (Bihar), Langhnaj (Gujarat), Baghor II, Chopani Mando, Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Damdama (all in Uttar Pradesh), Sankanakallu and Kibbanahalli (Karnataka).
- Rock shelter sites: Lekhakia and Baghai Khor in Uttar Pradesh; Adamgarh and Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh.
- Rock paintings: Bhimbetka near Bhopal, Raisin and Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh and South Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh are some of the sites.
- Coastal sites: Mumbai, Teri sites of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
- In India, Mesolithic cultures appeared around 10,000 BCE.
- In certain parts of India including Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it continued up to 1000 BCE, till the beginning of the Iron Age.
- Hunting wild animals and gathering plant food and fishing were people’s main occupation during this age.
- Agriculture was not practised in the early stages. At the end of the Mesolithic period, humans domesticated animals and paved the way for the Neolithic way of life.
- They made temporary huts and also used caves and rock shelters.
- Many caves and shelters feature paintings.
- Circular huts are seen in rock paintings.
- Traces of oval and circular huts and possible wattle daub are found in Chopani Mando and Damdama in Uttar Pradesh and Bagor and Tilwara in Rajasthan.
- Mesolithic people buried the dead.
- Suggests their beliefs and humane relationships.
- Human skeletons have been found in Mahadaha, Damdama and Sarai Nahar Rai in Uttar Pradesh.
- One burial had an ivory pendant as the grave good.
Chalcolithic Culture:
- The Pre Harappan cultures are the earliest Chalcolithic cultures of India, and they are found in the time before the beginning of the mature phase of the Harappan culture, and continued to exist in the later period.
- Unlike the mature urban phase of the Harappan civilization, Chalcolithic cultures were pastoral and based on farming, generally rural in nature.
- They used copper and stone blades and pottery and also low-grade iron in the later period.
- Their settlements were sedentary or semi-sedentary.
- In the north western and western regions of India, the early farming cultures are associated with the Chalcolithic cultures rather than the Neolithic cultures.
- The Chalcolithic people also began to domesticate animals in addition to agriculture.
- The houses were made of stone, mud bricks, mud and perishable wooden materials, and built on a stone foundation.
- People used black and red ware and black on red ware pottery.
- These sites have produced a large quantity of copper objects, such as flat axes, bangles, rings, knives, blades, socket-less axes, barbed and tanged arrowheads, choppers and chisels.
Ahar-Banas Culture:
- A Chalcolithic archaeological culture on the banks of the Ahar River of southeastern Rajasthan.
- Dated: from c. 3000 to 1500 BCE.
- Contemporary and adjacent to the Indus Valley civilization.
- Sustained on a number of crops, including wheat and barley.
- More than 90 sites of the Ahar culture have been identified to date.
- A number of sites with Ahar culture level are also found from Jawad, Mandsaur, Kayatha and Dangwada in Madhya Pradesh state.
- Rajasthan: Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Dungarpur, Banswara, Ajmer, Tonk and Bhilwara districts.
- Based on the pottery excavated here, this site is considered as a separate archaeological culture.
- Ahar pottery is a Black-and-red ware (BRW) with linear and dotted designs painted on it in white pigment.
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