Talk:Bhimbetka rock shelters

Unification Aspects:

The Bhimbetka rock shelters (named after Bhima, one of the Pandavas in the Hindu epic Mahabharata) date to around 9000 years ago, making them some of the world's oldest. The site bares resemblance to rock art sites in Kakadu National Park in Australia, the Bushmen in Kalahari Desert, and the cave paintings in France.

The Bhimbetka rock paintings depict the life of the people living in the caves—childbirth, communal dancing, religious rites and burials and the natural setting outside the cave. They provide an insight to the way of life from as long as 9000 years ago. Some of the scenes show people hunting, playing music, riding horses and elephants, collecting honey from bee hives, decorating bodies, and home scenes. They depict animals such as tigers, lions and crocodiles as well as religious and ritual symbols.

In 1888, Indian archaeological records the Bhimbetka cave paintings as Buddhist. In 1957, V.S. Wakankar correctly identified that humans made the paintings. Since then, archaeologists have found nearly 250 shelters in the Bhimbetka area. The earliest paintings date to the Mesolithic period, while the most recent date to the Medieval age. The ability of the paintings to endure thousands of years without fading puzzles archaeologists.

The value of the rock painting findings lay in the look into the lives of people in pre-civilization India. The theory about the origin of the Indian people is complex. Some archaeologists and anthropologists postulate that the people who made the paintings in the Bhimbetka rock shelters had been the ancestors of the modern Indian people, at least contributing to the gene pool.

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