Early South Indian Palaeography c8.s2.45

c8.s2.45

Many of the drawings in the Atlas Mountains may well belong to a period earlier than the Neolithic, as is shown, for instance, by the figures of the giant buffalo (*Bubalus antiqus*) which by then, it is believed, had become extinct. Adams holds that the drawings of elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes and ostriches, which are no longer in the northern areas, must belong to the time when there was a considerably warmer climate in the Atlas region.⁵⁷ In Central Sahara paintings happen to be more common. “ The style is naturalistic, animated ” and “ of particular interest are several polychrome paintings in the Tasili mountains representing graceful human figures dappled cattle close by ”.⁵⁸ The French Ahaggar expedition discovered in 1935 another site to the South-West of this region “ with the same kind of polychrome wall paintings, showing various animals, but chiefly cattle. A few human figures are distinguished by extraordinarily animated and often graceful movements ”.⁵⁹