Bhimbetka rock shelters

Also called: Bhimbetka · Topic: Prehistory: Human Origins and Stone Age Cultures · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 4 "Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation"

Meaning

The Bhimbetka rock shelters are a group of about 700 painted rock shelters in five clusters. They sit in the foothills of the Vindhyan mountains in Madhya Pradesh, south of Bhopal. People lived here from the Lower Palaeolithic onward, and the walls carry paintings from the Mesolithic to historical times. [3][4]

It is one of the largest stores of prehistoric art in India. In one place, it shows how early people's tools, art and way of life changed over a very long time. [3][4]

Explanation

Setting and discovery

• Rock shelter means a shallow overhang in a cliff. It is not a deep cave. Bhimbetka's shelters are cut into big sandstone outcrops. [3]
• The site lies on the southern edge of the central Indian plateau, in the Vindhyan foothills. [3]
• It was discovered in 1957. According to standard accounts, the archaeologist V. S. Wakankar found it. [3][4]
• Size: about 700 shelters, grouped in five clusters. [3][4]

A long record of human occupation

• Occupation began early. The shelters show people living here from the Lower Palaeolithic (the earliest part of the Old Stone Age) onward. [3]
• The tools change in clear stages, all at one site:
• Middle Palaeolithic: tools get smaller, and new scrapers appear. [3]

• Upper Palaeolithic: blades (long flakes with parallel sides), borers (tools for making holes) and burins (stone engravers for cutting marks into bone and shell) appear. [3]

• So Bhimbetka shows the same pattern seen across the Palaeolithic: the toolkit gets smaller and smarter over time. [3]

The paintings

• When they were made: from the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) right through to historical times. [3]
• What they show: animals, hunting scenes and dancing. This is daily life in a hunter-gatherer society.
• Why they matter: painting is symbolic behaviour, meaning thinking that goes beyond food and safety.
• Symbolic behaviour is linked with Homo sapiens (modern humans).

• It belongs with other early evidence: pigments for decorating the body, and the first beads, made of stone, bone and shell.

• Rock paintings survive in hundreds of caves around the world. Bhimbetka is the best Indian example of this global habit.

Living link with the present

• UNESCO says Bhimbetka is closely tied to a hunting and gathering economy. [3]
• This is shown in two ways:
• in the rock art, and
• in the living customs of the adivasi villages nearby. The customs of the 21 villages around the site closely match what the paintings show. [3]

Time, place and evidence

• Place: Vindhyan foothills, Madhya Pradesh, south of Bhopal, in sandstone outcrops. [3]
• Period:
• Occupation runs from the Lower Palaeolithic onward.

• Paintings run from the Mesolithic to historical times. [3]

• Key person: V. S. Wakankar, according to standard accounts, who discovered the site in 1957. [4]

• How we know:
• Archaeological finds: stone tools in layers, from Middle Palaeolithic scrapers to Upper Palaeolithic blades, borers and burins. [3]
• Rock paintings on the shelter walls.

• Ethnographic evidence: customs in the 21 nearby adivasi villages that match the paintings. [3]

• Heritage status: listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site ("Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka") in 2003. [3]

Don't confuse with

• Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu): a Lower Palaeolithic tool site in the Korttalayar basin, dated c. 1.5–1.7 mya and known for Acheulian handaxes. It is famous for tools and dating, not paintings. Bhimbetka is famous for its rock art. [2]
• Isampur (Karnataka): another Lower Palaeolithic site, c. 1.2 mya, known for animal fossils and large cutting tools. It is not a painted rock shelter site.
• Ajanta caves (Maharashtra): these are man-made Buddhist caves with paintings from historical times. Bhimbetka has natural rock shelters with prehistoric paintings made by hunter-gatherers.
• Rock shelter vs cave: a rock shelter is a shallow overhang in a cliff. Bhimbetka is a group of rock shelters, not deep caves.

Prelims Hooks

• Bhimbetka → Madhya Pradesh, in the Vindhyan foothills, in sandstone outcrops. [3]
• Discovered 1957. About 700 shelters in five clusters. [3][4]
• UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, listed as "Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka". [3]
• Occupation from the Lower Palaeolithic onward. Paintings from the Mesolithic to historical times. Trap: the paintings do not begin in the Lower Palaeolithic. [3]
• New tools in the Upper Palaeolithic at Bhimbetka: blades, borers and burins. Middle Palaeolithic: smaller tools and new scrapers. [3]
• The customs of 21 nearby adivasi villages match the rock art. [3]

Mains Points

• One site, a long story. Bhimbetka shows continuity and change in one place:
• It shows tools getting smaller, from Middle Palaeolithic scrapers to Upper Palaeolithic blades and burins.
• It shows art from the Mesolithic to historical times.
• It shows a hunting-gathering way of life that still echoes in nearby adivasi villages.

• This makes it a strong example for GS-I questions on Indian heritage and prehistory. [3]

• Art as proof of the modern human mind. The paintings of animals, hunting and dancing are symbolic behaviour, linked with Homo sapiens. Together with beads and pigments, they show identity, belief and shared group life, not just survival.

• Use the evidence with care. The match with the 21 adivasi villages is a useful ethnographic parallel, but a parallel is not proof. [3]
• We also cannot assume who painted the shelters. Women may have painted the rock art, even though textbook pictures usually show men as the main actors.
• A good answer separates what the evidence shows from what modern assumptions add to it.

Related concepts

• Palaeolithic age
• Acheulian tradition
• Handaxe
• Attirampakkam
• Isampur
• Hunsgi valley
• Pallavaram
• Didwana
• Soanian culture
• Hathnora

Read more

• Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers