The pre-historic rock paintings are in burgundy red, mauve, pale yellow and they show the use of bold & strong lines. These paintings proves that inhabitants of pre-historic period in India knew about colour making technique and use of it. The different types of figures & objects including men, birds and pigs together with geometric designs of uncertain motive are seen in these paintings. Some paintings have been superimposed on older paintings suggests that the works belong to various periods, but there is a difference of opinion among scholars about the probable age of these cave paintings. Some archaeologist palce their age much before the indus vallery civilisation in the upper palaeolithic period (25000 BC) while others suggest a date much later than Indus valley civilisation in the vedic period at around 1000 BC. But the majority opinion suggest the period of creation of these cave paintngs lies in the paleolithic age. Though the details of the premitive implements and garments etc depicted in some of the wall paintings found in central India resembles to similar objects in stone sculptures of comparatively recent period, this not necessarly mean that they belong to the same period as the sculptures. On the other hand, some of the rock paintigns found at Adamgarh are strong reminiscent of the upper palaeolithic wall pictures of Altamira (Spain) and can be taken of as the same antiquity as Altamira cave paintings.
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Cave Paintings : Pre-historic Period (25000 BC)


Pre-historic age is that stage of human civilisation about which no historical evidence is available.The Indian civilisation is one of the oldest ancient civilisations of the world and still a living civilisation able to preserve its past cultural traditions. Owing to its geographical factors, India has developed unique culture and civilisation of her own. India is seperated from the other countries by three oceans and the great wall of Himalayas. However, no civilisation and culture can remain isolated from the outside influence of their contemporary civilisations around the world.
History of Indian art or more correctly artifacts can be traced back to much before the Indus valley civilisation (3000 BC), in the prehistoric age before 25000 BC. Almost all parts of India have yeilded the evidence of prehistoric culture and prehistoric archaeology has been making progess since 1863 when first prehistoric artifact was found in the neighbourhood of Madras (present day Chennai) by Robert Bruce Foote. Robert Foote made a pioneering work in this field by undertaking exploration in south India where stone implements suggesting prehistoric culture at Pallavaram are found. The first premitive rock painting was discovered near Mirzapur by Archibald Carlleyle and J. Cockburn in 1880 and described by Cockburn in the "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal " in 1883. This painting represents a rhinoceros attacked by six men, some of them are wearing feather head-dresses.
Since then primitive cave paintings of this kind have been found near Singanpur, Hosangabad, Pachmarhi, Bhimbetka & Raichur in central India. Yale-Cambridge expedition conducted under the leadership of De Tarra also revealed evidence of pre-historic cultures in Punjab, Kashmir and the Narmada Valley.

                

     ( Cave Paintngs - Hosangabad &
                    Mirzapur, India)

        

          ( Cave Paintings - Bhimbetka,
              Madhya Pradesh, India)

 
 

The important thing to be noted here is that both the opinions are purely a guess work based on some logical assumptions and no direct evidence is available. But this is again the case with all the prehisotric cave paintings found all over the world. Some eighty miles away from Mohenjo Daro also some prehistoric sites were discovered which appeared to belong to middle stone age and are thousands of year older than Mohenjo Daro(Indus Valley). Middle stone age is a mesolithic period in which man made progess than palaeolithic man and started to live on hillocks with more refined tools than earlier palaeolithic period.
Most of the cave paintngs found in south & central India represents the hunting scenes, dancing scenes and some wild beast of upper paleolithic period. As Palaeolithic man lived hunters life, the motive behind the paintings could be to help hunting the beast either by attracting them towards cave paintings or by belief in certain magical power. These prehistoric rock paintings in India are similar to those found in Matopos (Zombabwe), Altamira (Spain) and Lascaux (France) suggests that these paintings are not only contemporary but the people in those period all over the world were at the same stage of evolution of the civilisation.
Whatever be the period and motive of the cave painter behind his creation but his bold lines, simplicity, directness & vitality still inspire the modern artists of our times.