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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

In article <xb7wD.102562$9O2.55175@fx03.iad>,
FBInCIAnNSATerroristSlayer <FBInCIAnNSATe...@yahoo.com> posted:

https://qz.com/india/1417503/stone-age-rock-art-found-in-india-hints-at-a-lost-civilisation/

Ancient rock carvings in India hint at a 12,000-year-old
lost civilisation

By Maria Thomas -- October 10, 2018

In the late 1980s, while exploring around the villages of
Maharashtra's coastal Konkan region, Sudhir Risbud came
across a big square pattern engraved near the road to the
beach town of Ganpatipule.

The electrical engineer and bird-watcher had no idea at the
time that it was a petroglyph, a form of rock carving
associated with prehistoric people, that was one of the
earliest depictions of art created by humans in the Konkan
region. Nor did he know that it dated from a time that
archaeologists have dubbed the area's "dark age," for which
no historical information was previously available.

Risbud and fellow explorers Dhananjay Marathe and Surendra
Thakurdesai spotted a few more examples over the years, but
it wasn't until a historian accompanied them on one of
their trips that they learned about the potential
significance of these engravings. So, in 2012, they began
to search for more in earnest.

"For the earlier period of about two years, we were just
groping (in) the dark. The villagers themselves, too, were
not aware that such rock arts do exist in their villages,"
Risbud, 45, told Quartz in an email. "But then, one day, an
octogenarian from the Dhangar (shepherd) community told us
about one site, and then on we trudged ahead using the
thread provided by him, and hence started our mission of
exploring the petroglyphs."

In April 2015, they stumbled upon a cluster of 42
petroglyphs, depicting birds, animals, and human figures.
In the years since then, the trio has uncovered over 1,200
engravings at 90 different sites across Sindhudurg and
Ratnagiri districts, the latter best-known for its sweet
Alphonso mangoes.

"All these sites are located in remote places on (the)
laterite plateau quite far away from the villages," Risbud
explained. Exposed to the elements and out of sight for
most villagers, no one had yet investigated the importance
of the petroglyphs nor given any thought to their
preservation.

"As we started exploring these sites, it dawned upon us
that they were under the threat of destruction from various
activities such as mining, road construction, and
plantation," he added.

So, they appealed to the Maharashtra state government's
department of archaeology and museums for help.

Tejas Garge, director of the department, says some of the
figures had come into official records as far back as the
1990s, when a bystander had spotted a few while a road was
being constructed towards the village of Nivali. But it
took over two decades before the state department
officially got involved in exploring and recording the
sites, which it began last year.

"We are documenting them scientifically, and we are trying
to gather data from stone tools and other evidence which
would be helpful to date them," Garge told Quartz.

The stone tools they've found so far are from the
mesolithic era, otherwise known as the Middle Stone Age,
dating back to about 10,000 BCE. Based on this, Garge and
his team estimate that the petroglyphs could date from
between 10,000 BCE to 2,000 BCE.

"They were not done in one shot, there's successive
generations of people who were doing this," Garge
explained. "This activity may have prolonged for
centuries."

So far his team has explored 45 sites in Ratnagiri, where
they've broadly categorised the figures into fauna, human
figures (often seen with their legs spread, believed to
have some relation to fertility), and abstract geometric
patterns that they haven't been able to interpret yet. But
what's most interesting is that the animal, bird, and
amphibian figurines include a number of creatures that
aren't found in the region today, such as the one-horned
rhino, suggesting that they may have once been present in
the area.

While the process of documenting and analysing the figures
is still in the early stages, archaeologists believe they
could solve the mystery of how the Konkan region
transitioned from a stone-age society to a settled one.

"If you look at the cultural record of Konkan, you have the
Middle Stone Age (upper Paleolithic period) and you have
evidence of the early historical era," Garge said. "In
between, there is a gap of 25-30,000 years; there's no
evidence for human habituation. It was sort of the dark age
of the Konkan."

Now, this dark age is starting to become a little clearer.

It will take a few more years before archaeologists can
accurately interpret the petroglyphs. So far, 15 of the
sites have been protected, and the archaeology department
wants to eventually draw tourists to the area. In the
meantime, Risbud and his fellow explorers are raising
awareness among the people living in the vicinity, so that
the public knows they're in the presence of the rare
remnants of India's ancient history.

Dhanyavaad for posting the article.

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj

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