Archaeology of Vindhyan Rock Art: some perspectives on its type and provenanceBy

Ajay Pratap, M.Phil & Ph.D. (Cantab.),Associate Professor,

Project Director, ICHR Rock Art of Mirzapur Project (2009-2011),Department of History,

Faculty of Social Sciences,Banaras Hindu University,

Varanasi 221 00528.9.2011

Presentation made to the Standing Committee of the Central Advisory Body of Archaeology (CABA), at 10:30 a.m. Conference Hall.

Office of the Director-General,Government of India,

Archaeological Survey of India,Jan Path,

New Delhi – 110 011

Map Of Field Area Showing the Distribution of Rock Art Sites Covered

Under The Survey

The Sites and Their Geomorphologic Setting

• Wyndham• Likhaniya Dari• Chuna Dari• Morhana• Lekhania• Mukkha Dari

Map1

Geo10

Geo9

Geo2

Geo1

Geo14

Geo13

Geo11

PARAMETERS FOR QUANTIFICATION • Depicted• Design• Description• Location• Colour used• Hand-stencil• Lines• Marks• Squiggles• Hunt or other activity• Human depictions• Unidentifiable• Shooting arrows• Using spears• Other activity• In need of description (i.e. Man holding a spear, man riding a horse)• Nature of painted infilling (criss-cross, completely infilled)• Human (of what types- linear drawing, infilled, male or female, child or adult, if identifiable)• Animal depictions• Deer (types)• Elephant• Dog• Panther• Tiger• Wild Buffalo• Horse• Rhinoceros• Wolf• Unidentifiable

Parameters (contd.)• Colours used• Geru• Black• White• Yellow• Other• Depictions• Location on the shelter (ceiling, mouth, inside shelter, random distribution)• Theme or single depiction• Multi-layered or single layer (panel)• Individual figure• Individual figures dispersed• Individual panel• Individual panels superimposed• Degree of superimposition• Location of superimposition• Colour variations in superimposition• Style variation (incised and painted or simply painted)• Total number of themes in one shelter• Total number of individual figures in one shelter• Location of individual figures in one shelter• Location of thematic paintings in one shelter• Shelter isolated or interconnected i.e. Providing more than one surface to be painted-on?• Associated archaeological material• Stone tool • Chert• Chalcedony• Basalt• Quartzite• Raw material availability (near or far, nature)• Type of stone tool (age, type, finished, blank, core etc.)• Water• Sources of water (near or far, nature)

Parameters (contd.)• Types of archaeological material• Burials• Stone tools• Post-depositional processes• Fluvial• Pluvial• Lacustrine• Aeolian• Animal activity• Human activity• Geomorphology• Geomorphology of the macro-area in which painted shelters occur• Geomorphology of the micro-area in which painted shelters occur• Rock type of painted shelter• Rock types obtaining in general area• Cryptocrystalline Silica (type, source etc.)• Soil types (Pedological profile)• Rock types (Petrological profile)• Annual variations in temperature• Annual variations in rainfall• Annual variations in wind conditions• Types of weathering• Current Flora• Type of forest• Predominant species• Fruit bearing trees• Roots and tubers• Vegetable (Jack, Tamarind etc.)• Current Fauna• Nilgai• Sambar• Cheetal• Blackbuck• Porcupine• Wolf• Wild dog• Jackal• Fox• Sloth Bear• Varanus• Tiger• Leopard

Parameters (contd.)• Misc• Type of Landscape (description)• No. of shelters in the group• No. of painted ones• Topography• Shelter• Shelter-group• Chronology• Prehistoric• Historical• Level of preservation• Good• Bad (if so, they what causes bad preservation)• Types of weathering near painted site or shelter• Causes of weathering near painted site or shelter• Causes of weathering of painted surfaces• Degree of erosion of painted surfaces• Causes of erosion of painted surfaces• Type of human activity around painted shelter• Amount of human activity near painted shelter• Type of animal activity around painted shelter• Amount of animal activity around painted shelter• Nature of tourism• Estimated number of tourists per year• Estimated number of occasions for tourism• Positive effects of tourism on paintings• Negative effects of tourism on paintings

• Introduction• In this paper we wish to discuss some fundamental issues confronting us in this Indian Council of Historical Research

Funded two year project (2009-2011) pertaining to the Documentation and Analysis of the rock art of Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh. The questions we have posed in this survey to the corpus of rock paintings of Mirzapur and their archaeology are briefly, as follows:

• What was the nature of the Pleistocene in the Vindhyas?• What modes of human subsistence prevailed in the Vindhyas during the Pleistocene?• What was the environment like?• What are the faunal populations?• What is the demographic profile of the Vindhyas at terminal Pleistocene?• Does the Vindhyan ecology see any faunal extinction?• What is the local ecological regime’ around painted shelters?• How old are the paintings?• Do they faithfully depict what existed?• Do they reveal anything about human social relations?• What is the meaning of Vindhyan rock art?• How does it behave as art?• In this paper, along with presenting some of the visual rock painting data we have recorded, thus far, namely from the sites

of Wyndham, Likhaniya, Chuna Dari, Morahna, Lekhania and Mukkha Dari, we shall foray into answering the problem-oriented questions which we have posed this corpus of paintings, along with the humdrum task of building a visual archive, in some measure, faithful to its purpose – the ultimate preservation of this invaluable rock art corpus of the Vindhyas, such that meaningful research may continue.

• What was the nature of the Pleistocene in the Vindhyas?• • On date no palaeo-enviromental data from the Vindhyas, particularly from Morahna and Lekhania, on the Vindhyan escarpment,

is available. Despite three excavations in this area Varma (1957), Misra (1967) and Jayaswal (1983) and other studies Singh (1985), Sharma (1985), Allchin (1958), Pandey (2010), Prasad (1996), Sacha and Pal (2010), and Singh (2005), there has been no effort to seek the data relevant to reconstruct the environmental correlates of ecological change affecting the highland Vindhyas at terminal Pleistocene. Sharma (1985, 369) based his observation that at terminal Pleistocene “there was a sharp change in the regime of Vindhyan Rivers and the Belan began to deepen its channel…”. As such research is at the moment beyond the mandate of this project; we shall present a rough environmental re-construction, as may be gleaned by secondary correlation and deductive logic.

• • It is evident that a dry phase in the climate is discernible in the post-Pleistocene upland environment as Kankar formations

(Pandey, 2010) are found in the deepest sediments of the Ganga valley, which have been scientifically ascertained to be Holocene in origin. In any case, as the upland soil profile is moderately lateritic and very thin, the possibility of Kankar formations to be found in the Vindhyan uplands is almost negligible. However, it may be mentioned that copious calcareous deposits are noticed (such as at WYN 3 and Chuna Dari 2 sites) which leads to the conclusion that this leaching of calcium carbonate from the soils indicates a prior presence of the same salt, in varying degrees, everywhere in the Vindhyan range. It may be mentioned in passing that there are several calcareous deposits noticed on rocks (Cockburn 1888) which is definitely through monsoonal leaching of the upland soils. Hence, we have to assume, that, the early Holocene climate obtaining in the Ganga valley, and which is scientifically proved, did also obtain in the highlands just south of it. However it does not bear mentioning even in passing that the ecological variation between Lowland Ganga valley and Vindhyan uplands is very significantly different and even in the uplands there are significantly different micro-ecological niches which differ from escarpments, flatlands in valleys, foothills and waterfall locations. That is the Vindhyan region is an econiche very different from the adjoining Ganga Basin.

• What modes of human subsistence prevailed in the Vindhyas during the Pleistocene? • Assuming that at least some of the Vindhyan rock art is indeed Upper Palaeolithic as archaeological

stratigraphic sequences suggest the development of tool-technology all the way from the Acheulian to iron-age, Sharma (1985, 369) suggested “the earliest layers of implementiferous cliff sections along the Belan Valley … offer a continuous record from Lower Palaeolithic…to Upper Palaeolitihic…”, it is possible to posit that human subsistence techniques in the very earliest of periods here was hunter-gatherer of the `collector’ type (Binford 1963, Rowley-Conwy, 2001, 2010) which at terminal Pleistocene gradually intensified, to the degree intensification is possible among hunter-gatherers, and transformed into `forager’ type hunting-gathering (Binford 1963, Rowley-Conwy 2001, 2010) marked partly by storage and sedentism. This may independently be inferred from the painted rock shelter types of the Vindhyas. Separately Binford (1963) and Rowley-Conwy (2001, 2010) have argued that the very earliest of hunting-gathering societies were `collectors’ with patterned but almost infinite mobility, as they moved from one resource-patch to another, fulfilling their subsistence-needs, without the need for a home-base. If this model is taken to be correct, and since it is, then it is logical to expect short-term hunting camps, which would be characterized by some idiosyncratic features in varying ecozones of the Vindhyas. In the Vindhyan context with its robust terrain we estimate that such short term hunting-camps of the `collector-type’ would be the painted sites which are entirely open-air. And indeed, there are a plethora of painted sites in the areas of the Vindhyas and the abutting Kaimurs which we have surveyed uptil now which bear copious rock-paintings (Wyndham 1, 2, 3, 4; Likhaniya Dari 1, Mukkha Dari 1, 2, 3). Of course, the very finest of examples of deductively constructed arguments suffer the worst of fates when confronted with direct dating methods but it is not as if precise dating-methods would make any sense at all in the absence of rational fleshing-out by archaeological reasoning.

• What was the environment like?• As we do not have access to any detailed studies of late-Pleistocene sediments

of the Vindhyas, we must work inferentially from the paintings themselves from such open-air shelters as named – Wyndham, Likhaniya Dari, and Mukkha Dari. The site-locations features in these three locations are similar in that all of these three sites are located next to open drainage channels, of mountain-fed streams. At Wyndham we have the Wyndham River, at Likhaniya the Garai River and at Mukkha Dari the Belan. The rock art depictions are abundant with such species as the Axis, Varanus, Elephas, Bos, Bubalus, Melursus, as well as predator species like Panthera tigris, Panthera pardus fusca, Canis lupus, from which we may assume that the late-Pleistocene climate in the Upper Palaeolithic, as earlier, was not very different, from the Holocene, in terms of local ecology and resource base. Significant change occurs (Pandey, 2010) only through episodic desiccation and re or over-hydration only after the onset of the Holocene.

What are the faunal populations?

• What are the faunal populations?• The following table summarises the faunal

populations encountered in the rock art such as is identifiable to any reasonable degree as some of the depictions are indeed “stylised”, vague or even “abstract”.

• What is the demographic profile of the Vindhyas at terminal Pleistocene?• V.D. Misra’s (2002) excavation at the Lekhania shelter on the Morahna escarpment

is a good starting point even though the distribution and locational density of rock paintings relatively indicates demographic aspects very crudely. Wyndham, Likhaniya and Mukkha Dari are all very densely painted open-air shelters. However, we do not expect more than band-size communities at any given painted site, which is to say no more than twenty or thirty individuals residing there at any given point of time. The Lekhania excavation has yielded near 18 complete and incomplete skeletal remains from its lowest depths and this therefore may be the total population inhabiting that site. Parameters relating to their age, sex, dental pathology and skeletal biology have already been published. Lukacs and Misra (2002) have argued through their dental pathology studies of the Lekhania skeletal series that the sort of dentition found among all the individuals here suggests that they were mainly meat-eaters, and hence, hunter-gatherers. Jayaswal’s excavation of a painted site (1983) at the Mura Hill site on the Morahna Escarpment, has also suggested an Upper Palaeolithic strata underlying the Mesolithic.

• Does the Vindhyan ecology see any faunal extinction?• The question regarding rock art as a means of detecting environmental and consequent

changes in faunal and other biotic aspects is a difficult one as the term `art’ suffixed to rock art presupposes that the ontology of rock paintings is likely non-empirical. Faunal species that are depicted are not necessarily the entire range but those (some 38 species have been found at the Mesolithic site in the Ganga Plains – Damdama- Thomas et. Al. 2002) which most appealed to the prehistoric painters as worthy of depiction. What then is the ontology of the rock paintings of the Vindhyas is one of our project goals which we have referred to as analysis and this would be preceded by a statistical description of frequency of each painted motif – human, animal, abstract, human activities depicted, type of animal activity depicted etc., decorative motifs. The debate around post-Pleistocene faunal extinctions from other parts of the world considers only mega-fauna extinctions due to climate change at the Pleistocene-Holocene transformation. Rhinoceros has been found in undated shelter paintings, in the Kaimurs, towards Robertsganj, however, it has also been found at the Mesolithic site Damdama. This suggests that some faunal migrations from the highland Vindhyas northwards to the Gangetic plains, savannah type grassland during the Holocene, is likely. However, highly stylised, historic period painting of a rhino hunt has been found by us next to the Great Deccan Road at CAR 7 shelter, Locality II, Morahna.

• What is the local ecological regime’ around painted shelters?• The Vindhyan ranges are non-continuous series of Montane zones, intersected by Sub-montane zones, River

valleys, and Flatland. The Montane zones are very rich in primary sandstone and quartzite and bands of cherty and other siliceous minerals obtain in most parts. However it is sandstone which predominates. Geomorphically, there is a variation from the south of the district, bordering Rewa where onion-peel weathering has exposed almost central Indian (Bhimbetka) like landscape, in which several painted shelters like Baghai-Khor, Morahna, Lekhania and Mura Hill obtain. Here water sources are seasonal, especially, on the Vindhyan escarpment. However, that water-supply here was also adequate sometime in the past is a logical conclusion from the excavations which have shown all these painted shelters to have been habitation shelters also.

• The source of Mukkha Dari, Likhaniya and Wyndham Falls is also the Vindhyan Plateau which gathers the annual monsoonal input and then discharges them as perennial rivers named variously as Belan, Garai and Wyndham. These locations evidence painted shelters which are all open air habitation shelters, located in Gorges with almost no soil profile at all, except at Wyndham, on the opposite bank facing the painted shelters.

• Both types of early habitats are also characterized by heavy forested type ecozones and niches with ample

access to forest products and wild fauna obtaining here round the year. Thus even if hypothetically these are upper Palaeolithic there location suggests them to be round-the-year hunting-gathering camps.

• How old are the paintings?• Subsequent to and consequent to the effort of documenting the variegated figures in variegated colours sizes and

shapes our attention has from the very start of this project been drawn towards the question – how old are these paintings or more precisely what age bracket or range should be appropriate. Broadly, the `Out of Vindhyas’ hypothesis has been accepted for the development both of the lowland Gangetic plains Mesolithic Chopani-Mando and Damdama; and Neolithic sites connected with early agriculture Mahadaha, Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahagara, Koldihwa. This is as it were the first and earliest visualization of the rise of agriculture in the Ganga Plains. The idea being that due to post-Pleistocene desiccation and re-hydration etc. The uplands became uninhabitable and therefore an out-migration of human as well as faunal population of the Vindhyas took place around 8,000 B.C – 2,000 B.C. when fully-fledged agriculture obtains as far south (of the River Ganga) as Senuwar and north of it as Chirand. In the last decade or so this picture has not been refuted, although, revised since lower Palaeolithic to upper Palaeolithic stone tool industries have been found in the Son River Valley (Jones and Pal 2010); but a greater chronology obtains in the Vindhyas itself where a direct sequence from lower Palaeolithic to the iron-age cultures is now in no doubt. The rock paintings themselves have on date not been direct-dated and we refuse to accept relative dates as a valid means to be establishing the chronology of rock paintings of this area. Broadly, the stylistics, which is the type and modes of execution of drawings obtaining at the sites studied by us (some slides here) suggest that at the very least painting activity must have started in the upper Palaeolithic, however, at the moment this is just an informed-guess. Why have we advanced such a hypothesis? This is because such faunal species as are reported from the earliest of levels of Damdama (Thomas et al 2002) are indeed found in the Vindhyan rock paintings. Thus if the Mesolithic Cultures in the Ganga valley are of 8,000 B.C. then following the `Out of Vindhyas’ hypothesis, chronologically, the representation of the same fauna in the Vindhyas must necessarily be much older, possibly of the late Pleistocene. Then again as Cockburn has reported paintings from the Son Valley itself, then it also bears examining, what the antiquity of these paintings are.

• Do they depict faithfully what existed? • This is just a small example of the chaine’-operatoire that we have followed.• Returning now to the chief issue confronting this project, which is that after we have finished subsidiary deductions regarding current

environment and ecology and the past ones, which apparently played some role in determining the hunter-gatherer art of the Pleistocene or the late Pleistocene or the Holocene? What further may we possibly say about the utility of the rock paintings of the Vindhyas as material culture for the historical reconstruction of past societies? Why were they made? It would have been nice to be able to say, as John Coles has for the Scandinavian rock art, that rock art is a picture-show (Coles...). In brief, he suggests that paintings on a rock surface, over a period of time, yield an unintentional series of images, which is likely to mean many things tom many people. And that therefore it is a picture show.

• That is to say that in this medium of archaeological material culture which we call rock art we have a recording of what happened in prehistory, and later, much as in a piece-meal visual record. And therefore that is its final meaning. The tapestry of images at any one site will make sense only in parts and not in its totality, as is presumed by Post-processualists purporting to regard rock art as `text’. This idea was insinuated by John Coles. Even as we reserve our own view of what we think of rock art at this point, John Coles’s view is clearly one amongst many others, on the nature and meaning of rock paintings, all of whom, which in our view, are inferentially no closer than others with regard to assessing the nature of rock art as a medium of representation.

• It may even be said that the business of interpreting the rock art of the Vindhyas is sometimes as confounding as to their ultimate meanings as much as the pictographic Indus Valley Script. For what we have is a series of images which make sense per image but not necessarily when we add to it the very next image. For a scientifically valid interpretation of a pictorial phenomenon we need a congruence and consensuality regarding its purpose. On date, that sort of a condition may not be claimed for interpretive studies of prehistoric rock paintings anywhere in the world. All we have are hypotheses with differing theoretical origins – cognitive, ecological, semiotic, landscape, cognitive, shamanistic, statistical, iconographic, art historical, but most of all commonsense-based interpretations, and last but not least explanation of rock art imagery through excavations in painted shelters. Yet, just as the spoken language transcends subsistence behaviour so does pictorial or visual and art activity so that there is little chance of a one to one correspondence between excavations (Technomic aspects) and Rock Paintings (Ideational).

• For as Roland Barthes argued in his famous book `Writing Degree Zero’ there are writerly-texts and there are readerly-texts. This is to say that the intentions with which a writer of a coded text inscribes his/her views may not correspond entirely with the meanings a reader/or more than one readers may draw from it. This is no doubt the problem with all literature and art. Is it the same with prehistoric art? That is another school of thought insofar as decoding the meanings of prehistoric/historic rock paintings is concerned. This position is usually adopted by semiotics-based interpreters chief of whom has been the work of Margaret Conkey.

• Do they reveal anything about human social relations?

• Without a shade of doubt there are numerous depictions of humans, both realistically, and stylized; individually, and in groups; indulging in various types of activities (kindly check the types of categories into which you have slotted this art until now and list/summarise their value here.)

• What is the meaning of Vindhyan rock art?• For the purposes of our project we have categorized the documented images into certain discrete groups or boxes which we feel would

help us sort and group the pictures best given our project goals of documentation and analysis of the rock paintings of the Vindhyas. These are:

• Abstract designs• Activity areas• Animal activity depictions• Animal figures• Archaeological feature• Associated archaeological feature• Binding material• Bones• Catastrophic• Cognition• Colour types• Contemporary animal activity shelters• Erosion• Fading-faded paintings• Hand stencils and imprints• Human activity depictions• Human alterations• Human figures• Landscapes

Lines squiggles and designsLocation on shelterOverall shelterPainting materialPainting at heightPainting weathering agentsPost-depositional processesRaw materialRock typeRock weatheringShelter typesSoil typesStone toolSuperimpositionSurfaceThematicThematic panelsThreatsTourist impact negativeTourist impact positiveUnidentifiableUnrecognizableVisualityWater sourcesWeathered paintingsWeatheringWeathering of paintingsWork by previous archaeologists

• How does it behave as art?• Nearing the conclusion of this paper we would like to contend that the origin of Vindhyan rock paintings

is an entirely local phenomenon. Moreover, there are elements of difference between one cluster and another such as Morahna, Lekhania, Likhaniya, Chuna Dari and Mukkha Dari, which seems to suggest that this vast geographical area was inhabited in the past by distinct groups of people not necessarily connected in terms of lineage, band or tribe. As a wonderful panel at Wyndham 3 shows there was inter-group conflict over resources. Lukacs and Misra (2002) have observed `parry-fractures’ amongst one or two male and female individuals and have speculated violence to be the origin of these. Finally, some juxtaposed and superimposed paintings also suggest assertion of territorial authority of one group over another. Indeed Tim Ingold has argued that hunter-gatherers appropriate the landscape by placing their markers such as art over their defined territories.

• The placing of rock art in cave-hollows of Morahna and Lekhania suggest that these shelters were inhabited later than those at Likhaniya, Chuna Dari, Mukkha Dari and Wyndham by groups of hunter-gatherers of the forager type who used these shelters as home-bases in their foraging economy. Except Wyndham, and Mukkha Dari, as all these sites evidence historic period paintings laid on or juxtaposed with earlier paintings it is likely that these shelters were inhabited well into the iron-age when rhino-hunts, wheel-drawn chariots, horsemen with swords and shields are a commonly depicted theme. The earlier or Late Pleistocene painting sites or layers evidence mainly faunal depictions, decorative designs and in some cases immature designs and figures which suggest that they were made by infants or children.

• Conclusion• To conclude, our work of `documentation’ and `analysis’,

although still in progress, has over three field-seasons (2009-2011) has led us to document some 30 sites in various zones selected in the Vindhyan Range south of the Varanasi district in Mirzapur. These are separated from each other by considerable distance and occur in a variety of ecological niches. A final goal of our research project is to be able to also document the erosive processes active on the rock art of the area such that a comprehensive conservation plan may be developed and recommended to the Department of Archaeology, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and, the Archaeological Survey of India.

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Mukkha Dari

• Mukkha Dari is located in Ghorawal Tehsil, Sonbhadara (Old Mirzapur). The rock paintings at this site are located in a gorge cut by the Belan River, closer to the source of this water fall.

Mukkha Dari• The site of Mukkha Dari is situated in the peneplain country near Ghorawal Tehsil and

constitutes a Water Fall site which has painted rock shelters (MKD 1, MKD 2 and MKD 3).• It is located in a deep gorge carved-out by a subsidiary drainage of the Belan River which

flows some Kilometers from here.• It has a very deep cascade and even in the dry season it has sufficient water accumulation so

as to make it a site suitable for year-around prehistoric camps.• The Mukkha Dari is located inside a Reserved Forest area and abounds in game.• Three painted shelters occur on the southern-face of this Dari or waterfall.• These bear paintings of antelopes and other cervidae, possibly Bos Gaurus, and other

bovidae, fish of unidentifiable type, elephant (Elephas Sp.), human figures engaged in various activities, and designs : outline figures of hand, some geometric designs with or without infilling.

• At MKD 1 paintings are near the ground on exposed surface and therefore considerably faded.

• At MKD 2 the paintings are at a height of some one hundred feet from the channel of the drainage and has therefore survived degradation to some extent. This location bears the largest density of paintings amongst all sites at Mukkha Dari surveyed till-now.

• Like MKD 1 MKD 2 has just some rudimentary paintings of cervids and humans.

MKD 3

MKD 2

MKD 1

MKD 2

Weathered Paintings at MKD 1

Views Downstream from MKD 1, MKD 2 and MKD 3

View Opposite Side of MKD 1, 2, and 3

February, 2011, Drainage at Mukkha Dari Painted Shelters

Permanent Pool at Source of Mukkha Dari Waterfalls

Mukkha Dari Site Landscape

Lekhania (near) Morhna: a brief note

• Lekhania has previously been excavated by V.D. Misra (2002) and is most distinguished of all the shelters in this area as it has an abundant history of settlement.

• The shelters is very big, multi-chambered, with at least five distinct areas, which have been profusely painted, and these indicate that this site may have comprised long-term residential unit within the Morhna Shelters.

• Painted-areas are located at the ground-level, with paintings of humans and animals, and V.D. Misra’s excavations near these revealed several burials.

• Thus Lekhania 1, in V.D. Misra’s (2002) classification, represents a long-term residence camp.

• Much Chert and Chalcedony debitage, chips and fragments are still to be found around these shelters.

• A view of the old trenches taken by V.D. Misra (1967) is still available.

Chamber 5- entrance

Chamber 4

Chamber 3

Chamber 1

Landscape

Landscape as seen from Chamber 3

Landscape around Lekhania Shelter

The Moraha Pahar Sites

• The Morhana Pahar sites are distributed in three distinct cluster. In our survey we have described these as:

• A.C.Carlleyle Shelters: • Group One, CAR 1 to CAR 6 are some six shelters, occurring near the

Drummondganj-Rewa Highway, before Bhainsor Village.• Group Two Shelters CAR 7 – CAR 12, some six of them occur a far way away on this

Vindhyan Plateau, well-away from Morhana-Group One, but occur in the same geological and ecological settings.

• Group Three Shelters CAR 13 – CAR 14, two of them, occur a short distance away from Group Two shelters.

• The Fourth and final group, as per our present knowledge, is the Lekhania (near) Morhana sites, comprising a multi-chambered shelter at Lekhania, occurring south-east of Bhainsor village and perhaps 3 KM distance from it and about 6 KM from Group Two shelters, while it is some 4 KM from Group One Shelters.

• We are yet to explore and document Laharia-Dih shelter occurring on Mura Hills (cf. Jayaswal, 1983) some 6 KM beyond Bhainsor towards Rewa.

CAR 15 – adjacent to CAR 16 – numerous hand stencils

Elephant surrounded by numerous human figures, possibly being hunted, with a historical period painting superimposed – CAR 16

Man on Horse with sword? and shield – superimposed upon another painting

CAR 16

CAR 14

CAR 13

CAR 9

Location of CAR 7, CAR 8 and CAR 9 with respect to each other

CAR 8

Morhana Pahar Sites: Group One

CAR - 1

CAR 3

CAR 3

CAR 4

CAR 4

CAR 4

CAR 5

Likhaniya Dari (LKH 1) and Chuna Dari (CHD 1 and 2)

Chuna Dari

• Chuna Dari (CHD 1 and CHD 2) is the name given to two painted shelters which lie about 2 KM upstream the Garai River on which, Likhaniya Dari, is also located.

it lies upstream from Likhaniya, and quite away from the drainage channel at Likhaniya, this site, which contains many paintings of prehistoric and historic origins. As these sites are away from the Forest Department naka it has been extensively damaged by picnickers and revellers.

• In some cases modern plastic and emulsion paints have been used to deface the prehistoric and historic images.

• This is perhaps the most defaced site in this region.

CHD - 2

CHD- 2

New Paintings found at Paintings at CHD 2

Close up of three animal figures, Chuna Dari (CHD 1)

Close-up

Close up

New paintings at CHD 1

Historical Period, Camel-cart painting on roof above the mouth of the Cave CHD 1

Prehistoric painted figures overlain with modern graffiti at the mouth of the cave (CHD 1)

Soot-overlay over prehistoric painted figures, camp-fires modern or ancient?

Faded-designs

Remote-view, same figure, children’s doodles.

Red-geru, chess-board type painted figure

Faded designs

Faded Painted pattern – Children’s Doodles?

Paintings on the ceiling (CHD 1) circumscribed with modern graffiti

Chuna Dari: soot and termite runs on on cave shelter ceiling

Chuna Dari: Damaged Paintings

Chuna Dari Painted Shelter – submerged designs

Chuna Dari (CHD 1) – prehistoric paintings submerged under modern graffiti

Likhaniya Dari (LKH 1)

• Likhaniya Dari is located in the Vindhyan Range near Sukrit lying in the Sonbhadra Division (Old Mirzapur) of Uttar Pradesh.

• It is located right next to the Robertsganj highway, under a culvert, under the highway, where a seasonal stream, called Garai, has cut a channel through the Vindhyan range.

• It is extremely easily accessible and there is here but one painted panel.• Paintings here are in a very good state of preservation despite some degree of

defacement.. This is a multi-period painting site.. The earliest panel here, probably Upper Palaeolithic is at the right hand bottom

margin.. The remaining paintings were executed on the same surface over a long period of

time.. Some of the six distinguishable panels are thematic panels although they are

historic.

Panel at right: Man hunting tiger and leopard

Right top and bottom panels

Panel at Right: Prehistoric panel

Close-up on one part of the beehive fig., Likhaniya

Animal like fig., panel 2, Likhaniya

Same Fig., panel 2

Panel 2 and 3 at Likhaniya

Panel 1 at Likhaniya

Historic period elephant painting

What species of deer?

Six juxtaposed periods of paintings

Inverted paintings on the ceiling

Main Panel at Likhaniya

Garai River: Mountain fed stream

location

Approach

Sandstone Hills destroyed by quarrying for Patias (Sandstone-Slabs)

Painted Sites WYN 1, WYN 2, WYN3 and WYN 4 at Wyndham Water Falls, Mirzapur

• WYN 1 is located very near the source of the Wyndham waterfalls and paintings occur on a 40-50 foot high cliff-face. It is very difficult to guess how these were executed or indeed to give them a close-up examination. There are no other paintings at or near WYN 1. As this site is very near the source of the waterfalls, and is located some fifty foot above it, and gives a clear view of animals coming to drink at a small pool of water nearby, it is a very ideal location for a prehistoric camp. Some broadly speaking Mesolithic axes occur in situ near the WYN 1 site. AS the paintings here constitute but one solitary panel, located some sixty-feet above ground-level we had to document them only through photography, that is using a zoom lens.

• At WYN 2 paintings exist near a live wolf-lair. Hence although we have seen them once, we have not returned, as yet, to photograph them. WYN 2 occurs in a, lone shelter downstream from WYN 1. The paintings are very badly faded

• WYN 3. Here we have the maximum number of paintings at any given Wyndham Site and along with copious modern graffiti. Most paintings re either faded or covered with CaCo3 deposit and in need of chemical cleaning. This shelter is also visited by monkeys and other animals and other types of weathering such as plant (vegetation, macro) and micro-vegetation erosion of rock art through the growth of algae, fungi, lichen and moss is evident here. Birds nests, and wasps nests, beehives, cobwebs occur in the painted area. Mostly, individual animal figures occur; however, there is at least a few panels which we may label as narratives panels of some sort.

• WYN 4 site has two painted shelters• One has an asymmetrical paintings with four figure of eight paintings. And a group of seven or eight vertical

lines. And an animal drawing in between the two. • This shelter is located some 100 meters adjacent to WYN 3 shelter along the course of the same river.• There occur two separate painted panels• The first to the left with some basic figures and lines.• The second to the right with one thematic panel and some individual drawings on its ceiling.

WYN 1

View from WYN 1

View of Wyndham River From WYN 1

Close-up of paintings

Elephant/Giraffe/Dog

Paintings at WYN 3 – two thematic panel superimposed – content unresolved

Leopard figure? Deposit of CaCo3.

Thematic Painted panel – Content unresolved

Thematic panel – content unresolved

Animal figure – species unresolved

Thematic Panel – content unresolved

Figure on the ceiling – iconic representing what unresolved – perhaps monitor lizard (Varanus monitor)

View of left-margin of WYN 3 shelter

Forward View from WYN 3 shelter of the Wyndham River

WYN 4 Site

• The WYN 4 site has two painted shelter• One has a asymmetrical paintings with four figure of eight paintings. And a group of seven or

eight vertical lines. And an animal drawing in between the two. • This shelter is located some 100 meters adjacent to WYN 3 shelter along the course of the

same river.• There occur two separate painted panels• The first to the left with some basic figures and lines.• The second to the right with one thematic panel and some individual drawings on its ceiling.

Children’s Doodles?

Figure of 8 and basic animal figure Close-up

Tiger?

Arrow Cross-fire Panel at WYN 4

Close-Up

Mid-section, Figure of 8 from shelter at left occurs here too with superimposition of paintings of this panel

Extreme-right

Left of right

House, extreme right

Archer, with back to house

Human figures, extreme-left of the panel

Human figures, extreme-left

Humans, flying arrows, mid-section

Figure of 8, child doodle? However, differing pigmentation

Thank You

• Thanks• Ajay Pratap• 28.9.2011• New Delhi