New Delhi, April 8 – A Delhi University anthropology professor and his doctoral researcher had a fortunate discovery while accidentally stumbling upon a prehistoric rock art site near Chaukhada village in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur.
The team, led by Manoj Kumar Singh, initially planned to visit a well-known rock art site in the Kaimoor region. However, due to a navigational error and logistical challenges, they ended up in Chaukhada.
The rock site, containing paintings tentatively dated between 14,000 and 10,000 years old, has been a part of the village's everyday life, with locals often interpreting the paintings of humans and animal figures as representations of something divine.
However, the events that led to this archaeological discovery are remarkable, as Singh describes them.
Singh, a specialist in prehistoric archaeology, along with researcher Sudeshna Biswas (who is also a UGC Senior Research Fellow and Secretary of the World Archaeological Congress), and some anthropology students, embarked on a routine field trip in the first week of April.
They were scheduled to visit Kaimoor, but a navigational error led them to Chaukhada village in the Marihan tehsil of Mirzapur.
Instead of turning back, Singh and Biswas decided to explore the surrounding area, aided by assistance from a couple of local residents, while the anthropology students waited.
"We wanted to explore the area first before leaving," said Biswas. "The Mirzapur region is significant in the history of Indian rock art studies, as it includes some of the earliest documented discoveries by Archibald Carlleyle in the 19th century."
"It must have been an archaeologist's instinct because that decision turned out to be important," she added.
Approximately 2.5 km from the village, they discovered a cluster of sandstone rock shelters, where faint red markings on the rock surfaces caught their attention.
"They turned out to be rock paintings, possibly belonging to different periods, including prehistoric and later ones. What initially appeared as scattered traces gradually revealed a rich and varied collection of motifs across different shelters," said Singh.
According to him, the motifs depicted human-like figures, animal forms, and scenes suggesting movement, interaction, and possibly hunting. The figures, created with red pigment, are simply styled yet expressive in their arrangement.
"In several panels, the figures are grouped, indicating collective behavior rather than isolated scenes. The stylistic features of these paintings are comparable to early Mesolithic rock art traditions of central India, suggesting a tentative date range of c. 14,000–10,000 BP (before present), although further scientific analysis is required for confirmation," Singh explained.
The Delhi University team has already documented several shelters, noting multiple panels with distinct visual features. According to the observations, anthropomorphic figures wielding bows and arrows have been noted, along with elongated shapes, triangular bodies, and sometimes decorative elements.
One panel features a palm-like imprint, a motif often associated with symbolic or ritual significance in rock art research, Singh noted, adding that variations in pigment intensity, from vivid red to faint traces, also suggest that the site was reused over a long period.
The discovery, however, only marked the first part of the story, as now Singh and his team are in the process of appealing to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to grant them official permission to do an extensive study of the site, which includes documentation, mapping, and scientific analysis, and also provide protection as the site currently lies vulnerable to damage by both humans and environmental factors.
During the visit, the team noticed evident damage, including scratches and overwrites on some panels.
"Most of the damage we saw is not deliberate," Singh had noted during the documentation of the site. "It is largely due to a lack of awareness about what these paintings represent and how fragile they are."
Biswas explained that for the local community, the site is not viewed as an archaeological resource but as a place of belief and everyday interaction as the markings on the rocks are often interpreted as sacred or divine.
As a result, physical contact with the surfaces, such as touching, sitting, or placing objects, is common.
She added, "The terrain here closely resembles that of Madhya Pradesh, which has one of India's largest clusters of painted rock art. Further studies in this region could provide valuable insights into the dispersal and continuity of early human settlements across the Vindhyan terrain.
"A greater comparative studies across this belt and anthropological research all across the tribal societies in the region could shed more light on understanding the meanings embedded in the art across the region."
The director of the Centre for Tribal Studies at DU, Soumendra Mohan Patnaik, noted that the site holds immense promises for new revelation in culture and societies of prehistoric times, especially when connected with ethnoarchaeological insights from the local tribal population.
For now, the Chaukhada rock art remain suspended between reverence and ruin, a place long woven into local belief, and now newly recognised as a possible window into India's prehistoric past.