MESOLITHIC-ERA ROCK PAINTINGS IN INDIA – ART AND CULTURE
News: Archaeologist
reports Mesolithic-era rock paintings in Guntur
What's in the news?
● A
Mesolithic period rock painting depicting a person tilling a piece of land has
been found in Orvakallu village in
Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.
Key takeaways:
● The
paintings were made with natural white kaolin and red ochre pigments.
● Most
of them had been “badly damaged” due to exposure to “air and wind”. However,
some of the sketches and outlines are still intact for the visitors.
Pigments used in the paintings:
● Ochre
is a pigment composed of clay, sand, and ferric oxide.
● Kaolinite
is a soft, earthy, and usually white mineral produced by the chemical
weathering of aluminium silicate minerals like feldspar.
● The
stage corresponds to the cultures between the Paleolithic and Neolithic
periods.
● Whereas
the start and end dates of the Mesolithic Period vary by geographical location,
they range between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE.
Features of Mesolithic-era Rock Paintings:
● The
colour red was commonly used
throughout this period.
● It
contains a broader range of topics, although the paintings are smaller.
Painting themes:
● The
hunting scenes that were popular at
the time. The paintings show the following events.
○ People
hunt together in groups.
○ Armed
with barbed spears, sharp sticks, arrows, and bows, they go hunting.
○ Primitive
folks used traps and snares to catch animals.
Animal representation:
● Mesolithic
artisans adored painting animals such as elephants, bison, tiger, boar, deer,
antelope, leopards, panthers, rhinoceros, fish, frogs, lizards, squirrels, and
birds are among the creatures depicted.
Social life:
● These
paintings include people of different ages, including children and women.
● Handprints,
fist prints, and dots produced by the fingers may be seen in several rock
shelters.
Go back to basics:
Rock Paintings in Bhimbetka:
● It
is located south of Bhopal in the Vindhya mountains of Madhya Pradesh, with rock shelters containing around 500 rock
paintings.
● V. S. WAKANKAR
founded the Bhimbetka caves in 1957-58.
● In
2003, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Timeline:
● The
oldest paintings are considered 30,000 years old and have survived because of
their placement deep within the caverns.
● The
caverns have been occupied continuously from 100,000 BC to 1000 AD, with
various artworks drawn on top of one another.
● There
are up to 20 layers of paintings in certain spots, one on top of the other.
● Bhimbetka's
paintings date from the Upper
Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Chalcolithic, early historical, and medieval periods.
● The
majority of the paintings date from the Mesolithic period.
Painting methods:
● Natural materials
are utilized to create colours such as red ochre, purple, brown, white, yellow,
and green.
● For
the red colour, haematite ores were
employed, while the white colour was
most likely derived from limestone.
● Green
made from Chalcedony, a
green-coloured rock.
● Plant
fiber was used to make the brushes.
Themes of the paintings:
● Prehistoric
men's daily lives, frequently shown in stick-like
human figures.
● Elephants, bison, deer,
peacocks, and snakes are among the creatures
shown.
● Hunting
and conflict scenarios with armed men.
● Geometric
shapes and symbols that are simple.