Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts - Volume 3, Issue 4 – Pages 251-270
Living Tradition: A Study of Prehistoric Rock-
paintings and Indigenous Art from District
Sonbhadra, Southern Uttar Pradesh, India
By Indrani Chattopadhyaya
In this I intend to weave together some emerging ideas on how to approach prehistoric art
forms and art styles from an ethno-archaeological perspective by analyzing local tribal art
traditions in the Kaimur region, in the district Sonbhadra, southern Uttar Pradesh (henceforth,
U.P.), India. Prehistoric art is rooted in human evolution and has emerged gradually for
finding solutions to many challenges of survival by people since 10,000 years ago. After
studying more than twelve painted rock shelters of Prehistoric period, I have explored the art
traditions and material culture of living tribal populations of Kol and Bhil in this area. This
paper attempts to find out (i) how far back we could trace cultural roots and (ii) whether there
is continuity in the cultural tradition (Paramparā) between the past and the present.
Introduction
In archaeological records, rock paintings are the most easily accessible
cultural data. These paintings capture our imagination, conveying meaning like
a "visual dialogue" between the world view of the artist from the past and the
viewers in the present. Through these paintings, we can look at the workings of
human mind and artistʼs comprehension of the world around him, and yet, we
are far removed from that world in time. Alpert1 has established that there are
cognitive continuities between Paleolithic cave painters and the ability of modern
man to relate to these visual images, regardless of time. The rock paintings are
depictions of moments or events at a particular time and there cannot be an
absolute identification or understanding of its meaning, as in the case of an
archaeological artefact - a stone tool or a decorated pot. The meaning in this case,
is elusive because the artist has not only created his paintings with his own
world views, cultural values and social concerns, but has also projected his sense
of aesthetics and artistic perspective to enrapt his viewers. The Indian concept of
aesthetic appreciation is a distinct kind of enjoyment and a critical judgment by
sympathetic experts (sahrdaya pariksaka). This is a judgment that assesses the
adequacy (samarthya) and appropriateness (aucitya) of the image. The proof of the
Reader, Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, India.
1. Barbara Olins Alpert, The Creative Ice Age Brain: Cave Art in the Light of
Neuroscience (New York: Foundation 20 21, 2008), 186-190.
https://doi.org/10.30958/ajha.3.4.3 doi=10.30958/ajha.3.4.3
,Vol. 3, No. 4 Chattopadhyaya: Living Tradition: A Study of Prehistoric...
aesthetics is in the experience and communicative skill of the artist to make his
paintings transcend cultural and trans-cultural contexts beyond time and space.
Like the archaeological evidence, in early rock paintings, we are looking at
the "fragmented past" and we seek patterns to get at the meaning of these
paintings. Understanding the meaning of these paintings is like interpreting the
meaningful action. Hermeneutics, the science of interpretation, especially Paul
Ricoeurʼs theory of interpretation that considers meaningful action as a "Text,"2
helps us in understanding the abstract symbolic meanings of the rock paintings
as we try to encode them from a participant-observer point of view, first to
understand the rules and the codes of the cultures these rock paintings belong to
– physical, biological, economic domains - and then critically examining them
from the perspective that these art works were created more than 8,000 years
ago. Artists put their own experience in their creation, so when we visit these
painted sites we are visiting both the past and the present. Archaeologists
reconstruct the past from their position in the present by recognizing the past
patterns and by matching it with the present patterns, observable in the society.
Anthropologists look at tribal/folk art as ethnographic category and study the
uses of art to understand their relation with other aspects of culture in living
peoples. Similarly, archaeologists study prehistoric art to study "idea culture" of
humans from the past to reconstruct them as thinking, believing, feeling, creative
peoples. Ethnoarchaeology provides links between the present and the past.
Whereas archaeologists look at the long-term changes, ethnoarchaeologists study
the short - term changes in the society to find out analogical answers for the
behaviour of past societies. Ethnoarchaeology, an established sub-discipline of
archaeology, systematically defines relationships between behaviour and
material culture to ascertain how certain features of observable behavior are
reflected in the archaeological finds.
After extensive ethnoarchaeological research in Africa, Ian Hodder3 has
reached the conclusion that "material culture is meaningfully constituted ... . All
human action is meaningful not simply because it communicates messages to
other people ... material culture is constituted within frameworks of conceptual
meaning." There is a dynamic relationship between the artefact and the context
that gives it meaning. Hodder4 elaborates this point, thus: "By placing an object in
a context, the context is itself changed. There is thus a dialectical relationship
between object and context, between text and context. The context both gives
meaning to and gains meaning from an object." Hermeneutics involves a process
of anticipating what is being said or communicated and then checking it out. It is
2. Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Human Sciences, ed. and trans. John B.
Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
3. Ian Hodder, Theory and Practice in Archaeology (London and New York:
Routldge, 1992), 11.
4. Ibid., 13.
252
, Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts October 2016
not a straightforward matter to correlate archaeological finds with past social
processes. In this paper an effort has been made to see the connection between
archaeological finds and early rock paintings and to study the painting tradition
of tribal peoples to see if there is any link between the present and the past,
keeping in mind that societies are continuously being transformed.
Palaeoenvironmental Setting
The area of this study is Sonbhadra district in north-central India (Kaimur
hills and plateau), north of river Son and south of river Belan, lying in the
southeastern corner of U.P.5 (Figure 1).
It is covered in the Survey of India topographical sheet no 63 P, L and 64 I
and M, on a scale of 1:2,50,000. Sonbhadra, previously part of Mirzapur districst
of U.P. was created as a separate district in 1991. It is bounded by Mirzapur and
Chandauli districts of U.P., in the north, State of Jharkhand in the east, State of
Madhya Pradesh in the west and State of Chhattisgarh in the south. The Kaimur
plateau and hills consisting primarily of sandstone, limestone and shale have
elevation approximately from 250m to 400m in height above mean sea level.
Figure 1. Map of India showing Sonbhadra (U.P.)
Archaeological and geological researches carried out in the middle Son
valley since 1980 resulted in a rich collection of prehistoric stone tools, fossilized
faunal remains and volcanic ash deposits from Toba mega-eruption in northern
5. Latitude 23° 51’ 54” N – 24° 46’ 18” N; Longitude 82° 40’ 24” E - 83° 33’ 15” E.
253
Living Tradition: A Study of Prehistoric Rock-
paintings and Indigenous Art from District
Sonbhadra, Southern Uttar Pradesh, India
By Indrani Chattopadhyaya
In this I intend to weave together some emerging ideas on how to approach prehistoric art
forms and art styles from an ethno-archaeological perspective by analyzing local tribal art
traditions in the Kaimur region, in the district Sonbhadra, southern Uttar Pradesh (henceforth,
U.P.), India. Prehistoric art is rooted in human evolution and has emerged gradually for
finding solutions to many challenges of survival by people since 10,000 years ago. After
studying more than twelve painted rock shelters of Prehistoric period, I have explored the art
traditions and material culture of living tribal populations of Kol and Bhil in this area. This
paper attempts to find out (i) how far back we could trace cultural roots and (ii) whether there
is continuity in the cultural tradition (Paramparā) between the past and the present.
Introduction
In archaeological records, rock paintings are the most easily accessible
cultural data. These paintings capture our imagination, conveying meaning like
a "visual dialogue" between the world view of the artist from the past and the
viewers in the present. Through these paintings, we can look at the workings of
human mind and artistʼs comprehension of the world around him, and yet, we
are far removed from that world in time. Alpert1 has established that there are
cognitive continuities between Paleolithic cave painters and the ability of modern
man to relate to these visual images, regardless of time. The rock paintings are
depictions of moments or events at a particular time and there cannot be an
absolute identification or understanding of its meaning, as in the case of an
archaeological artefact - a stone tool or a decorated pot. The meaning in this case,
is elusive because the artist has not only created his paintings with his own
world views, cultural values and social concerns, but has also projected his sense
of aesthetics and artistic perspective to enrapt his viewers. The Indian concept of
aesthetic appreciation is a distinct kind of enjoyment and a critical judgment by
sympathetic experts (sahrdaya pariksaka). This is a judgment that assesses the
adequacy (samarthya) and appropriateness (aucitya) of the image. The proof of the
Reader, Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, India.
1. Barbara Olins Alpert, The Creative Ice Age Brain: Cave Art in the Light of
Neuroscience (New York: Foundation 20 21, 2008), 186-190.
https://doi.org/10.30958/ajha.3.4.3 doi=10.30958/ajha.3.4.3
,Vol. 3, No. 4 Chattopadhyaya: Living Tradition: A Study of Prehistoric...
aesthetics is in the experience and communicative skill of the artist to make his
paintings transcend cultural and trans-cultural contexts beyond time and space.
Like the archaeological evidence, in early rock paintings, we are looking at
the "fragmented past" and we seek patterns to get at the meaning of these
paintings. Understanding the meaning of these paintings is like interpreting the
meaningful action. Hermeneutics, the science of interpretation, especially Paul
Ricoeurʼs theory of interpretation that considers meaningful action as a "Text,"2
helps us in understanding the abstract symbolic meanings of the rock paintings
as we try to encode them from a participant-observer point of view, first to
understand the rules and the codes of the cultures these rock paintings belong to
– physical, biological, economic domains - and then critically examining them
from the perspective that these art works were created more than 8,000 years
ago. Artists put their own experience in their creation, so when we visit these
painted sites we are visiting both the past and the present. Archaeologists
reconstruct the past from their position in the present by recognizing the past
patterns and by matching it with the present patterns, observable in the society.
Anthropologists look at tribal/folk art as ethnographic category and study the
uses of art to understand their relation with other aspects of culture in living
peoples. Similarly, archaeologists study prehistoric art to study "idea culture" of
humans from the past to reconstruct them as thinking, believing, feeling, creative
peoples. Ethnoarchaeology provides links between the present and the past.
Whereas archaeologists look at the long-term changes, ethnoarchaeologists study
the short - term changes in the society to find out analogical answers for the
behaviour of past societies. Ethnoarchaeology, an established sub-discipline of
archaeology, systematically defines relationships between behaviour and
material culture to ascertain how certain features of observable behavior are
reflected in the archaeological finds.
After extensive ethnoarchaeological research in Africa, Ian Hodder3 has
reached the conclusion that "material culture is meaningfully constituted ... . All
human action is meaningful not simply because it communicates messages to
other people ... material culture is constituted within frameworks of conceptual
meaning." There is a dynamic relationship between the artefact and the context
that gives it meaning. Hodder4 elaborates this point, thus: "By placing an object in
a context, the context is itself changed. There is thus a dialectical relationship
between object and context, between text and context. The context both gives
meaning to and gains meaning from an object." Hermeneutics involves a process
of anticipating what is being said or communicated and then checking it out. It is
2. Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Human Sciences, ed. and trans. John B.
Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
3. Ian Hodder, Theory and Practice in Archaeology (London and New York:
Routldge, 1992), 11.
4. Ibid., 13.
252
, Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts October 2016
not a straightforward matter to correlate archaeological finds with past social
processes. In this paper an effort has been made to see the connection between
archaeological finds and early rock paintings and to study the painting tradition
of tribal peoples to see if there is any link between the present and the past,
keeping in mind that societies are continuously being transformed.
Palaeoenvironmental Setting
The area of this study is Sonbhadra district in north-central India (Kaimur
hills and plateau), north of river Son and south of river Belan, lying in the
southeastern corner of U.P.5 (Figure 1).
It is covered in the Survey of India topographical sheet no 63 P, L and 64 I
and M, on a scale of 1:2,50,000. Sonbhadra, previously part of Mirzapur districst
of U.P. was created as a separate district in 1991. It is bounded by Mirzapur and
Chandauli districts of U.P., in the north, State of Jharkhand in the east, State of
Madhya Pradesh in the west and State of Chhattisgarh in the south. The Kaimur
plateau and hills consisting primarily of sandstone, limestone and shale have
elevation approximately from 250m to 400m in height above mean sea level.
Figure 1. Map of India showing Sonbhadra (U.P.)
Archaeological and geological researches carried out in the middle Son
valley since 1980 resulted in a rich collection of prehistoric stone tools, fossilized
faunal remains and volcanic ash deposits from Toba mega-eruption in northern
5. Latitude 23° 51’ 54” N – 24° 46’ 18” N; Longitude 82° 40’ 24” E - 83° 33’ 15” E.
253
