Bhimbetka depictions of horse with rider are 10,000 years old

by P. Priyadarshi

Bhimbetka rock-shelter paintings depict large number of horses. Although the
Bhimbetka paintings of same style and location are considered to date back to
the Mesolithic period which in this region would be about 8,000 BC, the
paintings depicting the horse are considered those from historical period only
because of the fact that the horse arrived in India as a consequence of the Aryan
Invasion about 1500 BC in the minds of most of the historians.

The Bhimbetka rock art are is being re-examined below so as to ascertain the
unbiased age of these rock arts.


Giraffe-hunting by the Horse-riders
(Period ? 8000 BC)
www.ignca.nic.in/coilnet/asp/showbig.asp?projid=rock



This rock art depicts five horse riders hunting a giraffe. Giraffe being a semi-
desert open forest animal could have survived in Central India only up to before
5,500 BC. Thereafter the region became dense forest making giraffe extinct.
Clearly horse taming and riding on the horse existed before 5,500 BC or 6000
BC in Bhimbetka region.

Mathpal too presents a picture depicting giraffe and a rider, which is probably a
sketch drawn after this rock painting:


Source: Mathpal, Yashodhar, Prehistoric Rock Paintings of Bhimbetka, Central
India, pp. Fig 27. 172. Also p. 17 and 18.
http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Prehistoric_Painting_Of_Bhimbetka.html
?id=GG7-CpvlU30C&redir_esc=y

Capturing the Wild Horse by a group of men


Fig: This freshly captured horse has been roped at several places. The belly has
been tied, and head and neck too. The legs have been tied with the shoots of the
creeper plants. The man on the right is holding bow and arrows to clarify his
status of a hunter. There is no evidence of any object related with the farming
culture.

This picture cannot belong to 1000 BC or 600 BC, because there was no wild
horse living in Central India at that time. The wild horse became extinct from
Central India by 5,000 BC and from northwest India about 6000 BC when the
ecosystems changed from grassland to forest.

The people who made the Bhimbetka rock art made these paintings for the
purpose of training in the skill of hunting. Possibly these were meant for the
kids and adolescents. The art and skill of hunting have been well demonstrated
in these paintings.

Stone Spear
Many Bhimbetka paintings of horse with rider depict stone-spears. It is a sharp
stone fastened to a stick. As in the picture below. The Historical Aryans would
like to use the iron tipped spears instead.



In fact this picture is a segment of a larger picture wherein a group of hunters is
returning after their venture out in the forest:



The Elk Hunting

One picture shows hunting of zebu bull and deer implying that this painting
pertains to a time well before the domestication of zebu cow in India. The size
of the stag is larger than all the bulls implying that that it was a large deer, either
the Red Deer or the elk, which once lived in India too. However the deer
depicted in the painting has a hump.

Red deer was found in the period IA and IB of Gufkral (Kashmir) archaeology
dating between 3000 BC and 2000 BC (Upinder Singh:114; Misra:507). The red
deer has no hump. Hence we can say that the Bhimbetka deer was elk (Cervus
canadensis), also called wapiti in Europe, now found only in Canada and
northern Eurasia. But it is agreed by zoologists that it once lived in India too. Its
one sub-species is found in Kashmir till today known as the hangul or Cervus
canadensis hanglu. The elk bones have been mentioned in Indian archaeology
(Peregrine Vol 8:280, 273). Sir John Marshall identified the antlers of this
animal in the excavations at Mohenjo-Daro (Marshall:328; Zysk:23), which he
thought were brought from Kashmir or somewhere else.
[Zysk, Kenneth G., 1992, Religious Medicine: The History and Evolution of Indian
Medicine, Transaction Publishers. ]

Elk lives in dry cold regions with grasses and enough water from rivers or lakes
to drink. Such climate existed in Central India about 8000 BC to 5000 BC
during the Holocene.


Bhimbetka Rock Art: Hunting


The robust depiction of the elk is consistent with its real size as can be seem in
the picture below.


For more detailed coverage referred to: In Quest of the Dates of the Vedas

http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Dates-Vedas-Comprehensive-Indo-
European/dp/1482834251