KONKAN GEOGLYPHS - ART AND CULTURE
News: Ratnagiri’s
pre-historic rock art: Why a proposed oil refinery has experts worried
What's in the news?
● Experts
and conservationists have raised concerns over the proposed location for a mega
oil refinery in Barsu village of Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district.
● They
claim that the refinery might damage prehistoric geoglyphs found in the area.
Key takeaways:
● The
prehistoric sites are protected by the state archaeology department and the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
● In
April, these sites in the Konkan region
were added to a tentative list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.
● While
the UNESCO listing dates these sites to be over 12,000 years old, some experts
have claimed that these sites might go as far back as 20,000 years, and that
this can be ascertained through carbon and geological dating.
● The
Barsu-Solgaon site was proposed after the original plan to construct a refinery
in Nanar village of the district was dropped in 2019.
What are geoglyphs?
● Geoglyphs
are a form of prehistoric rock art,
created on the surface of laterite plateaus.
● They
are made by removing a part of the rock surface through an incision, picking,
carving or abrading.
● They
can be in the form of rock paintings, etchings, cup marks and ring marks.
Ratnagiri geoglyphs:
● The
UNESCO listing mentions “Konkan
geoglyphs.”
● Clusters of geoglyphs are
spread across the Konkan coastline in Maharashtra and Goa, spanning around 900
km. Porous laterite rock, which lends itself to
such carving, is found on a large scale across the entire region.
● However,
elsewhere, the term petroglyph (literally, “rock symbol/character”) is also
used. As per the UNESCO listing, petroglyphs and geoglyphs share similarities
as both require the skills of removing parts or engraving a symbol on the rock
surface.
Significance of Ratnagiri geoglyphs:
● According to UNESCO,
“rock art in India is one of oldest material evidence of the country’s early
human creativity.”
● Ratnagiri’s
rock art is evidence of the continued existence of human settlements from the
Mesolithic (middle stone age) to the early historic era.
● The
geoglyphs also show the existence of certain types of fauna that are no longer
present in the region today.
● Ratnagiri’s
prehistoric sites are among three Indian attractions that may soon become World
Heritage Sites. The other two include Jingkieng
Jri, the living root bridge in Meghalaya, and Sri Veerabhadra Temple in Andhra
Pradesh’s Lepakshi.
What does the imagery in these sites tell us?
● UNESCO’s
World Heritage Site listing says that imagery from these sites shows how people
“adapted to ephemeral wetlands in a dry-arid plateau having shallow rock pools,
streams and watercourses”.
● Experts
say that the discovery of geoglyphs has added to ongoing research on human
resilience and adaptation to extreme fluctuations in climates.
● The
geoglyph clusters also are examples of advanced
artistic skills, showing the evolution of techniques of etching and scooping in
rock art.
● The
figures depicted in the geoglyphs include humans and animals such as deer,
elephant, tiger, monkey, wild boar, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, cattle, pig,
rabbit, and monkey.
● Moreover,
they also include a high number of reptilian and amphibian creatures such as
tortoises and alligators, aquatic animals such as sharks and stingrays, and
birds like peacocks.