Paintings by humans 15,000 years ago

I wandered into an Archaeological Survey of India site on Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka. Paintings inside caves here date to about 15,000 years ago. 

The image on left is from here.

This is a UNESCO World heritage site near Bhopal in the Vindhyan Mountains in dense forest. The buffer zone includes 21 villages whose culture appears to indicate a remarkable continuity with the rock art and with the tradition of hunting and gathering depicted in the paintings. 

The UNESCO write up on the site says : The area has abundant natural resources – perennial water

supplies, natural shelter, rich forest flora and fauna, and

like similar regions of significant rock art.., these conditions of plenty seem to have been

conducive to the development of sustainable and persistent

societies and the creation of notable rock art.

The image on Top is from here.

Some paintings contain a few images, while others have several hundred. Sizes of the paintings range from five centimetres to an immense impression on a ceiling of an animal nearly five metres in length and two metres across.

The image on Top is from here.

As a collection.. they form one of the densest known concentrations of rock art (400 painted shelters in an area of 19 km2 ). 

Bhimbetka owes its name to the characters of the longest epic in the world, the Mahabharata. It is believed that when the five brothers, called Pandavas, were banished from their kingdom, they came here and stayed in these caves, the massive rocks seating the gigantic frame of Bhima, the second Pandava. 

The image on Top is from here.