Early South Indian Palaeography c9.3

c9.3

It is difficult to ascertain the pre-historic nature of the rock paintings and engravings in India. Flake tools and microlithic implements have been collected from many sites in North India where rock paintings have also been noticed. In the Deccan rock paintings and engravings have been found near sites which have yielded neolithic implements and pottery. Thus it may be seen that the central table land of India, excluding the Indus and Gangetic valleys, and the Deccan plateau form the cradle of Indian rock paintings and engravings. Most of these, however, are not datable with any amount of certainty, but can be generally ascribed to the first or second quarter of the first millennium B. C. at the earliest. To the early series of Rock paintings belong those found in the Mahadeo Hills in Madhya Pradesh, and classified by D. H. Gordon as belonging to the Early First Series.¹ These are mainly line sketches of human figurines and animals, the 'ape-man' and carpet designs with tasselled hem. These drawings are followed by three more Series, the last of which is dated as late as the tenth century A.D. Gordon in view of the 'unbroken' 'succession' linking one series to the next, suggests therefore that "the earliest of these paintings cannot be taken back earlier than c. 700 B. C."²