The Art of India: Travels in Prehistoric Madhya Pradesh

We’ve been writing about Madhya Pradesh for many years now, so we’ve all grown quite familiar with its long and varied history, but it wasn’t until we started researching and travelling for Rock Art of Madhya Pradesh: Travel Guide that we realised how MP’s past stretches wa-ay back into the really, truly long ago.

An utterly unpredictable concatenation of geographical phenomena means that the ‘heart of India’ is chock full – quite literally – of ‘rock shelters’. Typically, a rock shelter looks like somebody armed with a really big spoon scooped a chunk of rock out of the side of a mountain – leaving a little hollow, complete with an entrance, a roof and a floor. In fact, the perfect place to catch your breath – particularly if you were wandering the prehistoric jungles of central India and were in no mood to confront a hungry tiger.

The Bhimbetka hills have over 600 shelters. This one actually looks like a hungry tiger

Tens of thousands of years ago, the men and women of the Stone Age wandered through these thick jungles, climbing up the many undulating ranges of MP – and turning the Vindhyas, the Satpuras, the Kaimur hills into crowded colonies.

Adamgarh was a tool-making factory

Pengwana probably looked like it does now – except for that blue door in the rock

For Rock Art of Madhya Pradesh, we went tramping in the footsteps of our most distant ancestors, and discovered how they spent their spare time.

One hundred thousand years ago, people made ‘cupules’ for art. There’s a whole wall of these spherical hollows in Dar ki Chattan, Mandsaur district.

Paintings like this mythical boar on the Cobra Rock in Bhimbetka are relatively recently. Only 20,000 years old, or so.

And herds of animals are a common theme

No matter what they were painting, though, prehistoric settlers certainly knew how to pick the most scenic spots.

Like Pachmarhi – still a beautiful hill-station

Or this serene stream, called Chaturbhujnath Nala

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