May 18, 2023
By: TNNDevgadh Baria's forest, home to sloth bears, harbors valuable insights into the Middle-Stone Age culture (9,000 BCE to 4,300 BCE).
During an expedition into the heart of the forest, a team from the forest department chanced upon a hidden cave adorned with ancient rock paintings, believed to be over 5,000 years old.
Fascinatingly, the priceless archaeological artifacts are under the watchful protection of a resident sloth bear, as the forest department team discovered while venturing deep into the forest.
The discovery suggests that the area was inhabited by humans in the Mesolithic age and many of the paintings are intact, archaeologists said.
The paintings on the granite rocks of a cave have been made in a way that they are unscathed by rain, wind and sunlight.
The paintings include those intact ones on the cave’s rock, and some others on other rocks of the hill that have been partly erased over the years.
Former MS University professor and an expert on rock paintings, V H Sonawane, said another painting with horses on it is more recent and could be from the 13th or 14th century.
Apart from Tarsang, other locations where such paintings exist in Gujarat include Chhota Udepur district, Amirgadh in Banaskantha, Idar in Sabarkantha, Thangadh in Surendrangar and Chamardi in Bhavnagar district.
On the paintings in Baria, the expert said these were made on granite rocks with red hematite, a ferrous oxide compound found in rocks and soil.
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