Newly Discovered Rock Art Sites in the Malaprabha Basin, North Karnataka: A Report Mohana R.1, Sushama G. Deo1 and A. Sundara2 1. Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Deemed to be University, Pune – 411 006, Maharashtra, India (Email: [email protected]; [email protected]) 2. The Mythic Society, Bangalore – 560 001, Karnataka, India (Email: [email protected]) Received: 19 July 2017; Revised: 03 September 2017; Accepted: 23 October 2017 Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 5 (2017): 883‐929 Abstract: Early research on rock art in the Malaprabha basin began in the last quarter of the 20th century. Wakankar explored Bādāmi, Tatakoti, Sidla Phaḍi and Ramgudiwar in 1976. This was followed by Sundara, Yashodhar Mathpal and Neumayer located painted shelters in Are Guḍḍa, Hire Guḍḍa abd Aihole region. They are found in the area between the famous Chalukyan art centres of Bādāmi and Paṭṭadakallu. The near past the first author carried out field survey in the Lower Malaprabha valley as part of his doctoral programe during 2011‐2015. The intensive and systematically comprehensive field work has resulted in the discovery of 87 localities in 32 rock art sites. The art include geometric designs or pattern, Prehistoric ‘Badami Style of Human Figures’, human figures, miniature paintings, birds, wild animals like boar, deer, antelope, hyena, rhinoceros, dog etc. Keywords: Rock Art, Badami, Malaprabha, Karnataka, Engravings, Elevation, Orientation Introduction: Background of the Research 1856 CE is a remarkable year revealing the visual art of distinction of our ancestors in a cave at Almora (Uttarkhand) in India around by Henwood (1856). This happened two decades before the discovery of rock art and initiation of research in Western Europe in the year 1879 CE. Since then rock art have been discovered and studied for the last 150 years. The year 1867 would remain as a milestone in the history of Indian rock research mainly because Archibald C. Carlleyle , the first assistant in the Archaeological Survey of India who under Alexander Cunningham discovered rock paintings along with microliths near Sohangighaṭ in the Kaimur range, Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh. Carlleyle has not published any account of his discoveries apart from his field notes left with his friend Rev. Reginald Gatty. Those notes were later published by Smith in 1906. By the same time there was another discovery and systematic survey of rock‐art sites in Mirzapur region by Cockburn (1883, 1989). In South India, initial investigation ISSN 2347 – 5463Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 5: 2017 began around 1842 by Capt. Newbold, in and around Kappagallu but he was silent about those pictures (Foote 1916). However, the first report on the petroglyphs at Kappagallu seems to have been made known by F. Fawcett in 1892, in the Asiatic Quarterly Review. He was also discovered Edkal cave in Kerala in 1901. Foote (1916) also briefly addressed the Kappagallu rock art in his book on The Foote Collection of Indian Prehistoruic and Photohistoric Antiqueties, Notes on their Ages and Distributions. In the early decades of the twentieth century mostly officers of the Geology, Archaeology Departments and even an individual here and there and they would report them in reports as well as journals. It is only with the incomparably extensive, sustainable and indomitable work in 1957 by Wakankar (1957) that the subject of rock art came prominently to limelight as a branch of study worth pursuing for the better understanding of the human thinking of the past and their society. He worked intensively in the Bhimbetka and surveyed around 700 shelters of them 300 with paintings. His Ph. D. thesis entitled Rock Paintings of India in 1973 from Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune was on these investigations and he also discovered most of the sites in many parts of India. Later, it followed by many scholars of the respective regions. In course of site more than 6000 rock art cave/shelters have been reported from Indian subcontinent. In Karnataka, it was undoubtedly Fred Fawcett (1892) was the first at the instance in Kappagallu‐Sanganakal area near Ballari in 1890s. Munn (1915, 1994, 1935) a British officer in 1915 amidst an extensive megalithic burial site dotted with about three hundred port‐hole chambers, three painted rock art shelters in the terraces of extensive granite hill ranges with countless natural caves and rock shelters near Hire Benkal. Krishna (1931) recorded an engraving of a tiger in Chandravalli in his explorations in late 1920s. R. S. Panchamukhifound an engraving of a pair of bulls facing each other on vertical side of a sandstone hill in Kullolli. In early 1950s Allchins couples (19in the course of their field study of the archaeological remains in the region of the Raichur doab. Allchin (1960) and Sundara (1974, 1978, 1984) threw light on rock art sites like Sivapura, Bilebhavi, Ānegundi, Emi Guḍḍa and at Piklihaḷ (with the kind assistance of the Director of Archaeology for Hyderabad, Dr. P. Sreenivasachar, he did a small excavation). Here numbers of paintings and bruising were found in association with Neolithic evidence (Gordon and Allchin 1955; Gordon 1951, 1958). Raymond and Bridget Allchin (1994‐95) conducted a detail study of Maski and Piklihaḷ rock art sites. Wakankar (Wakankar and Brooks 1976) brought to light a few paintings in Badami. Similarly Nagaraja Rao (1964) noticed paintings of a row of humans hand in hand engaged in folk dance in Tekkalkota. Yashodhar Mathpal and Neumayer located painted shelters in Are Guḍḍa and Hire Guḍḍa by 1978. Little later by Neumayer (1983, 1993, 2010). Since 1961 Sundara (1994) has been reporting painted caves and shelters especially in Anegondi‐Hire Benkal area (1987), Badmi‐Aihole area; Bellary‐Hospet 884 Mohana et al. 2017: 883‐929 area, Billamarayanagudda (1985), Chitradurga‐Chandravalli‐Jeṭṭinga Rāmēśvara area near Brahmagiri; Ankola coastal Karnataka and studied them along with the already known sites during his frequent field explorations for varied purposes in North Karnataka. Lakshman Telagavi (2004, 2006) has been noticing some rock art sites here and there as for instance in Hampi region and Middle Vedavati (Hagari) basin. Sharana Basappa Kolkar has been mainly on the rock paintings in Hire Benkal area, his Ph. D. thesis and later he published a monograph in Kannada entitled Shilayugada Gavichithragalu (Prehistoric Paintings: In Kannada). In coastal Karnataka Gururaj Bhat (1975) and Vasanta Shetty (1983) were probably the first to report the existence of rock engravings at Gavali. Mention should be made of an important discovery of a rock engraving panel in Sonda by Raghunath Bhat. Many more sites are being discovered since then. Particular mention should be made about the discovery an extensive rock engraving site in Buddhana Jeddu, Basrur, Mandarti and Subrahmanya and further exploration in known sites e.g. Gavali, Bole, Sonda from 2009 and onwards by Murugeshi and his team (2014). And in January 2011, they have discovered isolated engravings at Mandarti and Subrhmanya. The most recent systematic and full‐fledged exploration of rock art sites in the Malaprabha basin is being carried out by the first author (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017) as a part of his Ph.D. research: Reading Rock Art: Interpreting Temporal and Geographic Variability in the Middle Krishna Basin: Karnataka in the Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune. He has noticed for the first time some more sites in the region. Many of them are of the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period (Mohana 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2016, 2016a; Mohana and Hemant 2015). This paper presents newly discovered rock art sites with picture and other associated cultural materials in the Lower Malaprabha valley by the first author (2015a) as part of his Ph.D. programme. The explored sites are 32 sites; all the sites have 87 localities with pictures (Figures 1 and 2). Among the 32 sites 17 sites are discovered by the first author and the remaining are previously known. Locality and Pictures During the field investigation, field data have been documented as thoroughly as possible, such as detailed description of the sites (i.e. shelters/cliff/boulders/bedrrock with pictures) e.g. location, local name of the particular shelter or boulder, geo coordinates (GPS), elevation from AMSL, elevation of the shelter from the natural surface, dimension of the each shelter, floor, orientation, depiction of the picture: minimum hight from the floor of the particular locality (e.g. wall, ceiling, boulder, bedrock), type i.e. pictograph and petroglyph, evidence of pounding, present condition of the shelters. During the field survey are documented not only rock art sites but also archaeological remains in the vicinity of the rock art sites. The result of this was the exposure of Mesolithic site, Megalithic sites of different types i.e. dolmen, stone circle etc. inscriptions either engraved or painted of early Badami Chalukyan period and hero 885 ISSN 2347 – 5463Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 5: 2017 stones. The natural resourse of ancient water body e.g. river, streams, nala, pot holes of the earch of the locality of every site and proximity of the water body are noted. In last column of the tabulated shelters are mentioned published reference, local information and also new discoveries. Figure 1: Rock Art Localities in the Lower Malaprabha Basin Figure 2: Rock art Sites in Lower Malaprabha Basin (After Mohana and Dalavi 2015) 886 Mohana et al. 2017: 883‐929 Googlaḍi (GLD) Googlaḍi (15° 57ʹ 467ʺN ‐ 75° 34ʹ 779ʺE: Elevation (AMSL) ‐ 616 m) is a hillock, located 1 km to the northwest of village Mushṭigeri (Figures 3 and 4, Table 1). The ground is composed of gravel boulders and covered with vegetation (Mohana 2015a).