Bhimbetka

A total of 750 caves scattered over a 10x4 km area. Caves depict paintings belonging to the Paleolithic (10,000 BC), Mesolithic (5,000 BC) and Chalcolithic (2000 BC) periods.

The most famous cave is Rock Zoo, where you can see the paintings back to 10,000 BC made with limestone and also some paintings made between 5000 years and 7000 years ago with vegetable colors and iron. Zoo Rock shows a selection of animals from horses, elephants and buffalo from the antelopes. There is a clear difference in paintings made of 10,000 BC, and those made in 5000 BC. It makes one wonders if the animals themselves developed or was it that man has just been a better artist. There are also caves that depict paintings by mans daily life thousands of years ago. You have paintings showing dancing and other group showing hunting scenes.
Some caves are paintings dating back to 2000 BC. Here is the man displayed clothes and weapons are more sophisticated. The paintings have also improved. For example, while the horse was viewed as nothing more than line drawings in 10,000 BC paintings, a horse, painted in 2000 BC.The superimposition of paintings shows that the same canvas was used by different people at different times. The drawings and paintings can be classified under seven different periods:

Period I - (Upper Paleolithic): These are linear representations, in green and dark red, with large numbers of animals such as bisons, tigers and rhinos.

Period II - (Mesolithic): Relatively small in size, the stylized figures in this group show linear decoration on the body. Besides animals, there are human figures and hunting scenes, giving a clear picture of the weapons they used: barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows. Portrayal of communal dances, birds, musical instruments, mother and child, pregnant women, women with animal carcasses, drinking and burials appear in rhythmic movement.

Period III - (Chaleolithic): Like the paintings of Chaleolithic pottery, these drawings show that during the period the cave residents in this area had come into contact with the farming communities of the Malwa plains and started an exchange of their claims against each other.

Period IV & V - (Early Historic): The figures in this group have a schematic and decorative style, and are painted mainly in red, white and yellow. The association is of riders, depiction of religious symbols, tunic-like dresses and the existence of scripts of different periods. The religious affiliations are represented by numbers from yakshas, tree gods and magical sky chariots.

Period Vl & VLL - (Medieval): These paintings are geometric, linear and more schematic, but they show degeneration and crudeness in their artistic style.

The colors used by the cave dwellers were prepared by manganese, hematite, soft red stone and wooden coal. Sometimes the fat of animals and extracts of leaves were also used in mixture. The colors have remained intact for many centuries because of the chemical reaction resulting from the oxide on the surface of rocks.