40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

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40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Guest »

<img src="http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ ... luc101.jpg" alt="" />

Caption says:
"A 40,000-year-old cave painting seen on a white silica sandstone rock shelter depicting existence of human civilization is seen in Banda district 800 kilometers,(500 miles) southeast of New Delhi, India, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2002. The painting shows hunting by cave men in Paleolithic age. These caves were discovered recently. (AP Photo/Shekhar Srivastava) "

Mods: Please merge this topic with an other thread if necessary, but I felt that this was pretty interesting. It says that the paintings were found recently. Add anything related to this topic if you guys find anything.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by HariC »

I like the Kama Sutra paintings better. :rotfl: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kaushal »

Not near delhi but i believe in UP near the MP border
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by A_Gupta »

Is the maned creature in the center a horse ?
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kaushal »

Ah , the famous horse , or the onager or the famed unicorn ...
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by AshishN »

Are those flags that they are holding up? (Rectangles toward the bottom of the painting). And the dresses on the figures..looks like an advanced (relatively) group of people...good find.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Guest »

It looks to me like the people in the painting are holding hands together. It talks a lot about domestication of animals too, very compelling for a painting that is 40000 years, especially knowing the fact that domestication of animals was in its infancy (??) back then.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Nikhil Shah »

there is defnitly flags in there. hmmm! Advanced civilization in Indian continent? It can't be Indian..definitly it is picture of invasion :sarcasm:
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Victor »

Almost seems like the first ever army action! The cave paintings from other cave-dwelling areas of the world show random gangs hunting animals etc. This painting seems to show a well-trained phalanx with an 'officer' on the horse behind it and dead people in front.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Guest »

I see the flags. I wonder who invaded India 40,000 years ago?? :confused: :confused:
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by O Vijay »

Victor, when I looked at the painting, first thing which came into my mind is that its describing a battle field.

Rahul, how sure are the archeologists regarding the date? If its 40,000 yrs old, that would the oldest cave paintings in the world. They are suspiously well preserved for their antiquity.

But older drawings were found in South Africa.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/020107/020107-11.html

Engraved stones from South Africa could be the oldest works of art.

11 January 2002

JOHN WHITFIELD

Engraved stones found in a South African cave could be the earliest known artworks. The findings predate the oldest cave paintings by more
than 40,000 years.

About 77,000 years ago, human hands carved lines and triangles on two pieces of red ochre. The patterns show that people made abstract images and had the language and intellectual capacity to discuss their meaning, says Christopher Henshilwood of the South African Museum in Cape Town.

"Clearly, they stand for something else - they're not idle doodles," says Henshilwood, pointing to the elaborateness of the design and its repetition on separate stones. But he has no idea what this something else might be: "We don't understand human thought that deep in time."

Henshilwood and his colleagues found the stones in Blombos Cave, on the Southern Cape coast. The cave also contains finely carved bone tools and fishing equipment, suggesting that the cultural sophistication of the cave's inhabitants matched their technology.

Red ochre "didn't just lie about the cave", Henshilwood adds. "It would have had to be brought 30 or 40 kilometres". The stone might also have been used for body paint or decoration, he says.

Writing on the wall

"When I first saw a photo [of the carvings], my hair stood on end. It was mind-blowing," says anthropologist Alison Brooks of George Washington University in Washington DC. How the carvings were made might tell us whether they were writing, numbers, or an image, she suggests.

Anatomical and genetic evidence points to Homo sapiens being about a quarter of a million years old. But we do not know when our ancestors acquired language, culture and the other trappings of modern humanity.

Artworks are the key to answering this question, says Ben Smith, who studies rock art at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. "Art tells us about the makers' social systems, beliefs and rituals. It's like looking into their brain."

Old masters

The next-oldest marks generally accepted as art are French cave paintings, the oldest of which date back about 35,000 years.

These paintings led some researchers to posit that art arose in Europe. :cool:

Such attributes might even be older than modern humans, says Smith. Some million-year-old stone tools are far too big to be functional: "They might have a symbolic element," he says.

Our knowledge of African Stone Age culture is
based on discoveries at very few sites. More work is needed to show whether the Blombos Cave people were unusually sophisticated for their time and place, says Henshilwood.

Even if we don't recover art from this period, that doesn't mean people weren't, making it says Kathleen Gibson, an anthropologist at the University of Texas, Houston. "The Mona Lisa might not survive 40,000 years," she points out.

Decoration and aesthetics may only have taken off when populations got big enough for interaction between groups to become common and ideas to cross-fertilize, Gibson suggests. "If you're living in a group of 20 people, why would you wear jewellery and dress up?"

References

1.Henshilwood, C. S. et al. Emergence of modern human behaviour: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa. Science, (2001).
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by ShyamSP »

Originally posted by rahul r:
I see the flags. I wonder who invaded India 40,000 years ago?? :confused: :confused:
Paleolites Invaded according to PIT, written by Paleologists and supported by Macaulites. Before aleolites invaded there wasn't any horse existed in that part of world. So it was the first horse to come to India.

Some Indians argued it was a horse but eminent scholors disputed that since this animal got horns throughout upper body, it was a Multicorn.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Guest »

Rahul, how sure are the archeologists regarding the date? If its 40,000 yrs old, that would the oldest cave paintings in the world. They are suspiously well preserved for their antiquity
That's what the caption said beneath the picture in yahoo.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Prem »

quote
"Paleolites Invaded according to PIT, written by Paleologists and supported by Macaulites. Before
Paleolites invaded there wasn't any horse existed in that part of world. So it was the first horse to come to India.

Some Indians argued it was a horse but eminent scholors disputed that since this animal got horns throughout upper body, it was a Multicorn "

There can be 2 possibilties, one is that it is fraud by right wing hindus/ or they imported or copied this from some western country or the other 'fact; is of the proof of horses in the painting / drawing is the result of the celebration of the victory of some above mentioned or other foreign invader and He ordered this very drawings very next day after his Good night sleep. The desi Indians are simply not capable of anything.

Thanks
prem
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by svinayak »

WHen is the next issue of frontline, EPW with articles showing another big fraud of the 'fascists fundamentalists' with false claims and summary conclusions?
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by O Vijay »

Acharya, I am hoping Narayan_L will give his instant analysis...I can't wait that long for the Frontlie's expose.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by svinayak »

Narayan_L has taken the avatar of Narendhar now in BR if anybody has noticed. N^3 was confused in other threads.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by kautilya »

JE Menon
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by JE Menon »

>>Ah , the famous horse , or the onager or the famed unicorn ...

Now, first of all, that's not 40,000 - that's a typo. It's 400. Then that chap on the horse, look closely, yes, "Aryan features". That horse, too hairy, certainly from steppes of Central Asia. More to the point, damnit, what is missing is further to the left, graffitti in similar ochre colour saying, in English, no less, "Rajaram was here". It's a bit dim, so I've heard, but Michael Witzel can see it.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kaushal »

acharya, come to think of it there is a resemblance ... :D

I can decipher a person riding the horse with a rein in his hands

If you ask me the row of figures looks awfully like a tribal folk dance (doing the 2 step)
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by geeth »

N^3 was confused in other threads. :rotfl:
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by S Bajwa »

I see a painting of

1. Tamed horses.
2. Spears.
3. Group of people dancing or watching a sport or ????

To me it looks like a hunting game

"people are rounding up the animals to be killed by the person on the horse."

This type of hunting is pretty old in India., even british used it. could it be the british hunting game?
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kumar »

People in front could be dancing or could be in a battle formation. We do see dead people in front. The man on horse seems to be in a victorious pose. A scene about hunting would typically show dead animals or animals being killed but not dead humans.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by MohanJ »

Now the AITians will be happy: That is the proof of Aryan Invasion guys!!

Those people standing in a line are the local Mohenjdarians trying to stop the horse riding Aryans!!

or is it a group watching and cheerleadering a Mancho Rodeo match?

Call the JNU specialists somebody..

Some BBC page on Horses and such..
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Rudra »

Dr.Kaushal please report to ICU.

happy to see we had militant hunter roots.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Prem »

i just noticed that all these guys have english world "m" between their leg, what does that "m" stand for "moron" or some thing else ? and the guy is facing forward to east, does it mean He is from "west"

confused !! :D
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kuttan »

Narayan_L has taken the avatar of Narendhar
:eek: :eek: :eek:

Why didn't someone warn me?? :eek: ) Someone with my deep understanding of human history, music, literature and art can immediately see the logical connection to the subsequent development of the Khajuraho Civilization. Its really obvious (no pun intended) when you consider the consequences of people going around dressed like that. PET is pretty obvious as a consequence too.

And the label on the donkey-riding yahoo's shirt says: "Van Heusen" if I am reading this right on my Ultra High Resolution Monitor.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Ashok »

Incidentally, how old are the cave-paintings found several
years ago at Bhim-bhetka (sp?) (i think in Madhya Pradesh)?
Are they of comparable antiquity to these new finds?
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kaushal »

I had a suspicion you would bring this up Shri Wheeler. :)

I believe they are of comparable antiquity. I may have something stashed away on Bhimbhetka , which is 40 km from Bhopal.

Kaushal
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by bala »

Waiting for the analysis on the horse: is it the Rajastan kind or the Aryan-Steppe kind?
Meanwhile,

Fear of Engineering by Rajeev Srinivasan
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/01rajeev.htm

It bothers the JNU types that many of those challenging both their cherished shibboleths and their neo-colonialist processes are engineers and computer scientists.

Yes, an engineer can comment sensibly on politics, economics, even religious studies, but someone from those disciplines will be baffled by complex engineering concepts. This is not to say that technical tasks are more important - clearly not, for brainwashing people on a large scale is much easier for those who control history - but let the humanities types beware: and I believe they do. Thus, the fear of engineering.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kaushal »

wasu was the one who first brought out the distinction in the number of ribs between the Indian horse and the central asian one. While it would be difficult to determine from the painting whether it had 34 or 36 ribs it is clear there was a equid 40,000 years ago in the subcontinent.

I am reproducing the relevant portions of the AIT thread, but with the links updated, Kaushal

wasu
Member
Member # 2371

posted 24 October 2000 02:31 PM

From what I gather, the biggest hole in the indigenous theory is the absence of horse in Indus.
Rajaram argues about Indus 17-rib horse vs. European 18-rib horse in the article.
But there is something far more significant: the smaller Indian horse,
like the horse of Southeast Asia, is a different variety from the Central Asian or the Eurasian horse.
Here is what one expert (Paul Kennai Manansala) has to say:

Deep in the specialized literature on horse classification, we can find that In
dian and other horses extending to insular Southeast Asia were peculiar from oth
er breed. All showed anatomical traces of admixture with the ancient equid known
as Equus Sivalensis. However, like that equid, the horse of southeastern Asia
has peculiar zebra-like dentition. Also both were distinguished by a pre-orbital
depression. The orbital region is important because it has been demonstrated as
useful in classifying different species of equids. Finally, and most importantl
y in relation to the Vedic literature, the Indian horse has, like Equus Sivalens
is, only 17 pairs of ribs. (Emphasis added.)
Inere is verse 18 from hymn I.162, which is devoted to the sacrifice (authors t
ranslation):

The horse of victory has thirty-four ribs on the two sides that face threat in t
he battle. O skilled men, treat these uninjured parts with skill, so they may re
cover their energy! (RV, I. 162.18)

I never came across this until now. If this is true, it totally demolishes the theory about an outside horse. Of course, I heard the argument that the Indus horse is not a horse at all. What's u'r take on this.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IP: Logged

Kaushal
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posted 24 October 2000 03:13 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wasu, your citation is an important one. Certainly, it had escaped my attention that the horse of the Rg and the horse of the SSC each had 17 ribs on each side. As you say this completely demolishes the theory that the Rg Vedic Horse was imported from Central Asia ( a hypothesis which is otherwise quite tenable).
See also , R.gvedic horse has 34 ribs, a breed distinct from the Arabian equus caballus

http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/horse1.htm

Contrary to what has been alleged in the Rajaram fraud thread (admins - methinks you terminatd it prematurely, there was a lot of good info in the thread) Rajaram is not a fraud. He has spent several years on this topic and he is a talented individual specializing in the field of 'archaeological and literary forensics' IOW trying to decipher what happened in ancient India from literary as well as archaeological evidence. As he rightly observes professional Indologists and Historians feel threatened since they do not possess the manifold skills he possesses (knowledge of Samskrtam, accompanied by knowledge of various branches of the sciences and mathematics). This coupled with an inxhaustible energy and a passion for truth make a lethal combination but also an inviting target for polemically inclined individuals like Witzel.

I agree in large part with Rajaram. The Horse is not central to the argument and neither is the decipherment. I agree also with those who say that decipherment of the SSC script is difficult and will take more effort to be sure of what the script is saying. But the central argument always has been the drying up of the Sarasvati river around 1900 BCE. Why would the Vedics, if they immigrated to India ca.1500 BCE, as the Western Indologists claim, refer to this(as a mighty) river about 50 times, if it was already dried up. It simply does not make sense.

The answer to people like Witzel is for Indians to learn Samskrtam and read the texts in the original. There is of course no reference to any Immigration or Customs anywhere in the Rg or even to any geography outside of the subcontinent. References to what is now Afghanistan(Gandhara - Kandahar) do not count , since Afghanistan was part of India in those days, and the Vedics were spread far into that region. The AMT theorists, when they talk about immigration, talk about immigration from places such as Turkey and Central Europe.

I do not want to give the impression that I know exactly what happened 5000 years ago, but of this I am fairly certain. The Vedics did not come from Central Europe and Turkey ca 1500 BCE and bring with them a finished language called Samskrtam, spoken only in India, and the Vedic texts, studied only in India.

More on the palaeontology of horses
http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/horse5.htm

K
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kuttan »

Rajeev Srinivasan may have a point etc., but if the Aliens ever come down to Earthshaster again, my bet is that they would prefer to communicate with the politicians and JNU-graduates, not with engineers.

I recently had occasion to hear the Chief of the SETI program discuss plans for detecting "intelligence" beyond Earth. One criterion was the presence of narrow-band signals in the noise being sent out. I asked him later (a) why an advanced civilization would decide to communicate with narrow-band signals and (b) whether an Alien observing Earth from beyond Jupiter would indeed suspect the presence of any intelligence here.

He said (a) that advanced civilizations would probably use perfectly random-looking signals (the ultimate broad-band), but if you say that out loud ... :D
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Sridhar »

Narayan_L has taken the avatar of Narendhar
I don't think so - the member #s are different.
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Jodhka »

Sridhar
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Sridhar »

A question: how do they date cave paintings like these? Do they carbon date using the plant/animal dyes?
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Umrao »

Oh boy I am gonna miss my learned scholar par excellence shri/Thiru Narayanan L. If he is Narendhar then surely 'What's in a name.. he will still continue to be the miss guided scholar (asuming he was taught in a convent school during his early scholarly days...)

:)
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kaushal »

Apparently there is a profusion of cave paintings in the region. We may be discovering just the tip of the iceberg. There is already vandalism and they need to be protected.

http://www.outlooktraveller.com/aspscripts/postcard.asp

"Unfortunately, the paths to many of the picnic points have been reclaimed by the jungle, the beginnings marked by broken sign-stones with the wrong distances and often wrong names. Most tourists prefer to rush around on the plateau above, in stereo-thumping jeeps, from one roadside view-point to the next, spectacular though they are. The staff of the Satpura National Park has little knowledge or interest in the wonders of the wilderness that lies beyond the reach of their jeeps and motorcycles, including the dozens of Late Stone Age cave-painting sites scattered in the lush sal and bamboo jungle of the ravines, or perched on ledges in the cliff faces. The paintings are not as extensive as those in nearby Bhimbhetka, but are fascinating nevertheless. Perhaps, it is just as well the shelters are known only to a handful, while many more remain undiscovered. The two sites that are "protected monuments" are the only two disfigured by people seeking immortality by scratching their names over the paintings, into the soft sandstone.

The few paths the forest staff do know about are those to Bee Falls, Duchess Falls and Fairy Pool, which have been broadened into jeep tracks. Lakhs are collected at the barriers to these money-spinners every year. Not only does this push noisy diesel vehicles deeper into the jungle, it has converted the three spots into virtual garbage dumps. Making people cycle and walk would immediately cut down on numbers. The plateau occupies only 20 of the 1,400 square km of the Satpura national park, and has never had any resident tigers, the terrain being too precipitous to support their prey base. It should be converted into a cycling, walking, climbing, river-scrambling, bird-watching and exploring area, weaning the adivasis off mahua-distillation and "headloading" (of firewood) to employment as eco-friendly guides. Vehicular access should be restricted to the sacred cave-shrine of Mahadeo, and to the top of Dhupgarh, for its spectacular sunset. The forest bureaucracy should redirect its efforts towards managing the teeming wildlife in the rest of the park, including protection of tigers, two of which were poisoned a few years ago. "
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Kuttan »

Dang!

That address was:

http://www.geocities.com/wanted_for_terrorism/

Hard to remember all these Pakistan Information Pages (PiPs).
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by jrjrao »

"300-year-old step well in Halisa Village, 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of Ahmadabad... The ancient step well was found when nomadic tribes were digging the area to build huts on Oct. 31, 2002. Later in the excavation they found some carved stone plates with figures of ancient gods and goddesses. "

<img src="http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ ... amd101.jpg" alt="" />

web page
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Re: 40,000 year old paintings found near Delhi

Post by Ashok »

Originally posted by Kaushal:
Apparently there is a profusion of cave paintings in the region. We may be discovering just the tip of the iceberg. There is already vandalism and they need to be protected.
http://www.outlooktraveller.com/aspscripts/postcard.asp

"....The staff of the Satpura National Park has little knowledge or interest in the wonders of the wilderness that lies beyond the reach of their jeeps and motorcycles, including the dozens of Late Stone Age cave-painting sites scattered in the lush sal and bamboo jungle of the ravines, or perched on ledges in the cliff faces. The paintings are not as extensive as those in nearby Bhimbhetka, ...." ...
.......
Thanks, Kaushal sir. I was pretty sure you'd have something stored up on this subject as well. Any more details would be welcome -- a google-search does not yield all that many useful links on the subject.
Under which ministry's jurisdiction does the Archaeological Survey of India fall into? A little more co-ordination between the various ministries, like that of environment & forests (in this case) and the ASI would perhaps go a long way in preserving such sites while doing the best with the limited funds available.
Locked