Journey
Prehistoric rock art
The oldest marks on this map, and in several places still directly under a living pilgrimage or a living wall-painting practice. India holds one of the largest bodies of rock art anywhere, most of it unprotected and some of it identified only in the last fifteen years, and in two of these valleys the same motifs are still being painted on house walls.
Stops (13)
- Bhīmbetkā · Mesolithic onward, cupules possibly Acheulian
Over seven hundred and fifty shelters in the Vindhyas with painting from the Mesolithic onward, and cupules in the Auditorium Cave that may be Acheulian — among the oldest deliberate marks on rock anywhere in the world. Villages in the valley below still use motifs that echo the shelters above them.
- Ādamgarh · Mesolithic
Rock shelters near Hoshangabad on the Narmada, with painting and with some of the earliest evidence in the subcontinent for animal domestication in the same deposits. The Narmada valley is where Indian Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sequences were first worked out, and this is one of its type sites. The Narmada valley is where the Indian Palaeolithic sequence was first worked out.
- Pachmarhī / Mahādeo hills · Mesolithic, under a living pilgrimage
Painted shelters on the same Satpura massif as the Chauragarh Shiva shrine, where pilgrims still carry iron tridents up the peak and leave them. Prehistoric marking and living pilgrimage on one hill, a few hours' walk apart, is the clearest instance in India of continuity of sacred use without continuity of meaning.
- Chaturbhujnāth Nālā · Mesolithic onward
A gorge in the Chambal valley with kilometres of continuous painted rock face — one of the densest concentrations of rock art known anywhere in the world. It was surveyed seriously only from the 1970s, has no protection worth the name, and is periodically submerged by a reservoir. It has no protection worth the name and is periodically submerged by a reservoir.
- Lakhudiyār · Mesolithic
Painted shelters on the Suyal in Kumaon, with human figures in rows that are usually read as dance. They are in the same Himalayan foothills as the Nanda Devi processional landscape, which is one of the few places where a Himalayan rock-art site and a living Himalayan ritual route are in the same valley.
- Edakkal caves · Neolithic, with later inscriptions
Carvings in a rock cleft in the Wayanad hills — human figures, wheels, symbols — with later Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions cut in beside them. Literacy arriving on top of an older marking practice, on the same rock face, is visible here and almost nowhere else. Literacy arriving on top of an older marking practice is visible here and almost nowhere else.
- Kupgal / Sanganakallu · Neolithic
Neolithic ash mounds and petroglyphs above the Tungabhadra, with ringing rocks that were struck to produce tones and carry percussion marks from it. It is a short distance upstream of what became Vijayanagara, so the oldest and the grandest phases of this valley's history are within sight of each other.
- Onake Kindi · prehistoric
Onake Kindi, a painted shelter group near Hampi with human figures, animals and hunting scenes preserved in natural rock overhangs. Together with Kupgal it establishes that the Tungabhadra granite landscape was marked and used continuously from the Neolithic through to the imperial capital. Together with Kupgal it establishes that the Tungabhadra granite landscape was marked and used continuously from the Neolithic through to the imperial capital that was built among the same boulders.
- Jogīmārā & Sitabenga, Ramgarh · c. 2nd century BCE
Painted caves at Ramgarh beside what may be the oldest surviving theatre space in India — a rock-cut auditorium with a Brahmi inscription about actors on its wall. Prehistoric painting and the earliest physical evidence for Indian drama are in the same hill. Prehistoric painting and the earliest physical evidence for Indian drama are in the same hill, and the inscription on the auditorium wall is about actors.
- Isko & Hazaribagh rock art · prehistoric, and still painted
The painted shelters at Isko and around the Hazaribagh valleys, whose animal and geometric motifs recur in the Khovar and Sohrai wall paintings in the villages directly below them. This is an unbroken visual line rather than an archaeological one, and the only place in India where the two can be compared in one valley.
- Ladakh petroglyphs · Neolithic to early historic
Thousands of carvings along the upper Indus in Ladakh — ibex, hunters, chariots — with stupas cut later by the same technique on the same boulders. The rock therefore records the arrival of Buddhism directly, in the same medium as the hunting scenes it arrived among. The rock therefore records the arrival of Buddhism directly, in the same medium as the hunting scenes.
- Konkan geoglyphs · Neolithic or later
The Konkan geoglyphs, hundreds of large figures cut into the lateritic plateaus of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg and identified only from the 2010s — elephants, sharks, human figures, some of them tens of metres across. They are among the most recent major rock-art discoveries anywhere and their date is unresolved. Their date is unresolved and the plateaus they are cut into are under development pressure.
- Burzahom · c. 3000–1500 BCE
Burzahom in Kashmir, a Neolithic settlement of pit dwellings whose engraved stone slab showing a hunting scene with two suns is one of the few narrative prehistoric carvings from the subcontinent. Dog burials with human ones and Central Asian-type bone tools set the valley apart from the plains. Dog burials beside human ones set the valley apart from anything in the plains.