PREHISTORIC ROCK PAINTINGS
The distant past when there was no paper or language
or the written word, and hence no books or written
documents, is called prehistory or as we often say,
prehistoric times.
How people lived in those times was
difficult to surmise until scholars began to discover the
places where prehistoric people lived. Excavation at these
places brought to light old tools, pottery, habitats, bones
of ancient human beings and animals, and drawings on
cave walls. By piecing together the information deduced
from these objects and the cave drawings, scholars have
constructed fairly accurate knowledge about what
happened and how people lived in prehistoric times. When
the basic needs of food, water, clothing and shelter were
fulfilled people felt the need to express themselves. Painting
and drawing were the oldest art forms practiced by human
beings to express themselves, using the cave walls as their
canvas.
Prehistoric paintings have been found in many parts of
the world. We do not really know if Lower Paleolithic people
ever produced any art objects. But by the Upper Paleolithic
times we see a proliferation of artistic activities. Around
the world the walls of many caves of this time are full of
finely carved and painted pictures of animals which the
cave-dwellers hunted. The subjects of their drawings were
human figures, human activities, geometric designs and
animal symbols. In India the earliest paintings have been
reported from the Upper Paleolithic times.
It is interesting to know that the first discovery of rock
paintings was made in India in 1867–68 by an
archaeologist, Archibold Carlleyle, twelve years before the
discovery of Altamira in Spain. Cockburn, Anderson, Mitra
and Ghosh were the early archaeologists who discovered a
large number of sites in the Indian sub-continent.
Remnants of rock paintings have been found on the walls
of the caves situated in several districts of Madhya Pradesh,
Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar. Some
paintings have been reported from the Kumaon hills in
Uttarakhand also. The rock shelters on banks of the River
Suyal at Lakhudiyar, about twenty kilometers on the Almora
Barechina road, bear these prehistoric paintings.
Lakhudiyar literally means one lakh caves. The paintings
here can be divided into three categories: man, animal and
geometric patterns in white, black and red ochre. Humans
are represented in stick-like forms. A long-snouted animal,
a fox and a multiple legged lizard are the main animal motifs.
Wavy lines, rectangle-filled geometric designs, and groups
of dots can also be seen here. One of the interesting scenes
depicted here is of hand-linked dancing human figures.
There is some superimposition of paintings. The earliest are
in black; over these are red ochre paintings and the last
group comprises white paintings. From Kashmir two slabs
with engravings have been reported. The granite rocks of
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh provided suitable canvases
to the Neolithic man for his paintings. There are several such
sites but more famous among them are Kupgallu, Piklihal
and Tekkalkota. Three types of paintings have been reported
from here—paintings in white, paintings in red ochre over
a white background and paintings in red ochre.
Wavy lines, Lakhudiyar, Uttarakhand
These paintings belong to late historical, early
historical and Neolithic periods. The subjects
depicted are bulls, elephants, sambhars,
gazelles, sheep, goats, horses, stylized humans, tridents, but rarely, vegetal motifs.
Cave entrance, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh
The caves of Bhimbetka were discovered
in 1957–58 by eminent archaeologist V.S.
Wakankar and later on many more were
discovered. Wakankar spent several years in
surveying these inaccessible hills and jungles
to study these paintings.
The themes of paintings found here are of great variety,
ranging from mundane events of daily life in those times to
sacred and royal images. These include hunting, dancing,
music, horse and elephant riders, animal fighting, honey
collection, decoration of bodies, and other household scenes.
The rock art of Bhimbetka has been classified into
various groups on the bases of style, technique and
superimposition. The drawings and paintings can be
categorized into seven historical periods. Period I, Upper
Palaeolithic; Period II, Mesolithic; and Period III,
Chalcolithic. After Period III there are four
successive periods. But we will confine
ourselves here only to the first three phases.
Upper Palaeolithic Period
The paintings of the Upper Palaeolithic phase
are linear representations, in green and dark
red, of huge animal figures, such as bisons,
elephants, tigers, rhinos and boars besides
stick-like human figures. A few are wash
paintings but mostly they are filled with geometric patterns. The green paintings are of dancers
and the red ones of hunters.
Mesolithic Period
The largest number of paintings belong to Period II that
covers the Mesolithic paintings. During this period the
themes are multiple but the paintings are smaller in size.
Hunting scenes predominate. The hunting scenes depict
people hunting in groups, armed with barbed spears,
pointed sticks, arrows and bows. In some paintings these
primitive men are shown with traps and snares probably
to catch animals. The hunters are shown wearing simple
clothes and ornaments. Sometimes, men have been
adorned with elaborate head-dresses, and sometimes
painted with masks also. Elephant, bison, tiger, boar, deer,
antelope, leopard, panther, rhinoceros, fish, frog, lizard,
squirrel and at times birds are also depicted. The
Mesolithic artists loved to paint animals. In some pictures,
animals are chasing men. In others they are being chased
and hunted by men. Some of the animal paintings,
especially in the hunting scenes, show a fear of animals,
but many others show a feeling of tenderness and love
for them. There are also a few engravings representing
mainly animals.
The artists of Bhimbetka used many
colors, including various shades of
white, yellow, orange, red ochre, purple,
brown, green and black. But white and
red were their favorite colors. The
paints were made by grinding various
rocks and minerals. They got red from
haematite (known as geru in India). The
green came from a green variety of a stone
called chalcedony. White might have been made out of limestone. The rock of mineral
was first ground into a powder. This may
then have been mixed with water and also
with some thick or sticky substance such
as animal fat or gum or resin from trees.
Brushes were made of plant fibre. What is
amazing is that these colours have survived
thousands of years of adverse weather
conditions. It is believed that the colours
have remained intact because of the
chemical reaction of the oxide present on the
surface of the rocks.
This practice is common among primitive people of
today also. They engrave or paint on rocks as part of
the rituals they perform at birth, at death, at coming
of age and at the time of marriage. They dance,
masked, during hunting rites to help them kill
animals difficult to find or kill.
HUNTING SCENE
Hunting scenes predominate in Mesolithic paintings. This is one such scene
where a group of people are shown hunting a bison. Some injured men are
depicted lying scattered on the ground. These paintings show mastery in the
skill of drawing these forms.
DANCING SCENE
In this picture hand-linked figures in dancing mode are shown. In fact, this is a
recurrent theme. It also recalls the dancing scene from the Lakhudiyar rock
painting found in Uttarakhand.
CONCLUSION
These prehistoric paintings help us to understand about
early human beings, their lifestyle, their food habits, their
daily activities and, above all, they help us understand
their mind—the way they thought. Prehistoric period
remains are a great witness to the evolution of human
civilization, through the numerous rock weapons, tools,
ceramics and bones. More than anything else, the rock
paintings are the greatest wealth the primitive human
beings of this period left behind.
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