Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T07:45:41.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rock art and rock music: Petroglyphs of the south Indian Neolithic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Nicole Boivin*
Affiliation:
The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The rock art of Kupgal, south India, represents an archive of images amassed over five millennia. The author works out a first sequence and shows how the Neolithic petroglyph site may have functioned in its landscape – as a ritual locality at which not only images but sound, performance and social relationships were all prominent.

Type
Research
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2004

References

Allchin, B. 2003. Cattle Pens, Hill Farmsteads, Rock Art: The Southern Neolithic. Paper presented at the Workshop on Recent Research on the South Indian Neolithic, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, Oct. 11.Google Scholar
Allchin, B. & Allchin, F.R.. 1982. The Rise of Civilisation in India and Pakistan. Cambridge: cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Allchin, F.R. 1960. Piklihal Excavations. Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh.Google Scholar
Allchin, F.R. 1963. Neolithic Cattle-Keepers of South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Allchin, F.R. & Allchin, B.. 1994-95. Rock art of North Karnataka. Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 54–55: 313–39.Google Scholar
Bagwe, A. 1995. Of Women Caste: The Experience of Gender in Rural India. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Beck, B. 1964. Colour and heat in South Indian ritual, Man 4(4): 553–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bednarik, R.G. 1993. Palaeolithic art in India, Man and Environment 18(2): 3340.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G. 2002. The development of Indian rock art studies since Independence. In Settar, S. & Korisettar, R. (eds.), Indian Archaeology in Retrospect: Prehistory, Archaeology of South Asia: 353–75. Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Boivin, N. 2000. Life rhythms and floor sequences: Excavating time in rural Rajasthan and Neolithic Çatalhöyük. World Archaeology. 31(3): 367–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boivin, N. 2001. ‘Archaeological Science as Anthropology’: Time, Space and Materiality in Rural India and the Ancient Past. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Boivin, N. forthcoming. Landscape and cosmology in Neolithic South india.Google Scholar
Boivin, N. & Fuller, D. 2001. Looking for post-processual theory in South Asian archaeology. In Settar, S. & Korisettar, R. (eds.) Indian Archaeology in Retrospect, Volume IV: Archaeology and Historiography: 191215. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Boivin, N., Korisettar, R., & Venkatasubbaiah, P.C.. 2003. Megalithic markings in context: graffiti marks on burial pots from Kudatini, Karnataka. South Asian Studies 19: 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boivin, N., Korisettar, R., Venkatasubbaiah, P.C., Havanur, D., Mallagyannavar, K. & Chincholi, S.. forthcoming. Sarcophagus Burial at Kudatini, Karnataka.Google Scholar
Boivin, N., Korisettar, R., Venkatasubbaiah, P.C., Lewis, H., Havanur, D., Mallagyannavar, K. & Chincholi, S.. 2002. Exploring Neolithic and Megalithic south India: the Bellary District Archaeological Project. Antiquity 76: 937–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. 1997. Rock art and the prehistory of Atlantic Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 2000. An Archaeology of Natural Places. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. & Edmonds, M.. 1993. Interpreting the Stone Axe Trade: Production and Exchange in Neolithic Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brooks, R. & Wakankar, V.S.. 1976. Stone Age Painting in India. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Burton, J. 1984. Quarrying in a tribal society. World Archaeology 16(2): 234–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakrabarti, D.K. 1999. India, An Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations. New Delhi: Oxford.Google Scholar
Chakravarty, K.K. & Bednarik, R.G.. 1997. Indian Rock Art and its Global Context. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass.Google Scholar
Chandramouli, N. 1991. Rock paintings of Budagavi, Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh. Man and Environment 16(2): 7180.Google Scholar
Chippendale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C.. (eds.) 1998. The Archaeology of Rock-Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Devaraj, D.V., Shaffer, J.G., Patil, C.S. & Balasubramanya, 1995. The Watgal excavations: an interim report. Man and Environment 20(2): 5774.Google Scholar
Dufresne, A.S., Shaffer, J.G., Shivashankar, M.L & Balasubramanya, 1998. A preliminary analysis of microblades, blade cores and lunates from Watgal: A southern Neolithic site. Man and Environment 23(2): 1743.Google Scholar
Fawcett, F. 1892. Pre-Historic rock pictures near Bellary, South India. Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review (n.s.) 3: 147–57.Google Scholar
Foote, R.B. 1887 a. Notes on prehistoric finds in India. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 16: 7075.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foote, R.B. 1887b. Notes on some recent Neolithic and Palaeolithic finds in South India. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 56(2): 259–82.Google Scholar
Foote, R.B. 1895. The Geology of the Bellary District, Madras Presidency. The Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 25(1): 1216.Google Scholar
Foote, R.B. 1979. Prehistoric and Protohistoric Antiquities of India. Delhi: Leeladevi.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q. 1999. The Emergence of Agricultural Societies in South India: Botanical and Archaeological Perspectives. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q. in press. Domestication, diffusion and the development of agricultural villages: a study of the South Indian Neolithic. In van Kooij, K.R. & Ravern, E.M. (eds.), South Asian Archaeology 1999. Leiden: Institute for Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q. forthcoming. Dung mounds and domesticators: Early cultivation and pastoralism in Karnataka. In Jarrige, C. (ed.), South Asian Archaeology 2001.Google Scholar
Fuller, D. & Boivin, N.. 2001. Beyond description and diffusion: A history of processual theory in the archaeology of South Asia. In Settar, S. & Korisettar, R. (eds.), Indian Archaeology in Retrospect, Volume IV: Archaeology and Historiography: 161–90. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q., Korisettar, R. & Venkatasubbaiah, P.C.. 2001. Southern Neolithic cultivation systems: a reconstruction based on archaeobotanical evidence. South Asian Studies 17: 171–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, D.Q., Venkatasubbaiah, P.C & Korisettar, R.. 2000-2001. The beginning of agriculture in the Kundera River Basin: Evidence from archaeological survey and archaeobotany. Puratattva 31: 18.Google Scholar
Ganapayya Bhat, P. 1981. Rock art of Karnataka. Man in India 61(1): 4654.Google Scholar
Gero, J.M. 1991. Genderlithics: Women’s roles in stone tool production. In Gero, J.M. & Conkey, M.W. (eds.), Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory: 163–93. oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goldhahn, J. (ed.) 1999. Rock Art as Social Representation. Bar international Series 794. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Goldhahn, J. (ed.) 2002. Roaring rocks: an audio-visual perspective on hunter-gatherer engravings in Northern Sweden and Scandinavia. Norwegian Archaeological Review 35(1): 2961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, D.H. 1951. The rock engravings of Kupgallu Hill, Bellary, Madras. Man 51: 117–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, D.H. & Allchin, F.R.. 1955. Rock paintings and engravings in Raichur, Hyderabad. Man 55: 9799.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedges, K. 1993. Places to see and places to hear: rock art and features of the sacred landscape. In Steinbring, J., Watchman, A., Faulstich, P. & Taçon, P. (eds.), Time and Space: Dating and Spatial Considerations in Rock Art Research: 121–27. Melbourne: Australian Rock Art Research Association. Occasional AURA Publication No. 8.Google Scholar
Helskog, K. & Olsen, B.. (eds.) 1995. Perceiving Rock Art: Social and Political Perspectives. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture.Google Scholar
Huyler, S. 1994. Creating sacred spaces: women’s wall and floor decorations in Indian Homes. In Fisher, N. (ed.), Mud, Mirror and Thread: Folk Traditions of Rural India: 172–91. Ahmedabad: Mapin.Google Scholar
Jones, R. & White, N.. 1988. Point blank: stone tool manufacture at the Ngilipitji Quarry, Arnhem Land, 1981. In Meehan, B. & Jones, R. (eds.), Archaeology with Ethnography: An Australian Perspective: 5187. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Korisettar, R., Joglekar, P.P., Fuller, D.Q. & Venkatasubbaiah, P.C.. 2001. Archaeological reinvestigation and archaeozoology of seven southern Neolithic sites in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Man and Environment 26(2): 4766.Google Scholar
Korisettar, R., Venkatasubbaiah, P.C. & Fuller, D.Q.. 2001. Brahmagiri and beyond: The archaeology of the southern Neolithic. In Settar, S. & Korisettar, R. (eds.), Indian Archaeology in Retrospect, Volume 1: Prehistory, Archaeology of South Asia: 151237. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Leslie, J. 1991. Sri and Jyestha: ambivalent role models for women. In Leslie, J. (ed.), Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women: 107–27. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Mujumdar, G.G. & Rajaguru, S.N.. 1966. Ashmound Excavations at Kupgal. Poona: Deccan College.Google Scholar
Milne, C. 1995. Sacred Places in North America: A Journey into the Medicine Wheel. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang.Google Scholar
Nagaraja Rao, M.S. & Malhotra, K.C.. 1965. The Stone Age Hill Dwellers of Tekkalakota. Poona: Deccan College.Google Scholar
Nagarajan, V. 1995. Hosting the divine: the kolam in Tamilnadu. In Fisher, N. (ed.), Mud, Mirror and Thread: Folk Traditions in Rural India: 192224. Ahmedabad: Mapin.Google Scholar
Needham, R. 1967. Percussion and transition. Man 2: 606–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumayer, E. 1983. Prehistoric Indian Rock Paintings. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O’Flaherty, W.D. (trans.) 1994. The Rig Veda. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Ouzman, S. 1998. Towards a mindscape of landscape: rock-art as expression of world-understanding. In Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C. (eds.), The Archaeology of Rock-Art: 3041. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ouzman, S. 2001. Seeing is deceiving: rock art and the non-visual. World Archaeology 33(2): 237–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paddayya, K. 1973. Investigations into the Neolithic culture of the Shorapur Doab, South India. Leiden: E.J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paddayya, K. 1993. Ashmound investigations at Budihal, Gulbarga District, Karnataka. Man and Environment 18: 5787.Google Scholar
Paddayya, K. 1998. Evidence of Neolithic cattle-penning at Budihal, Gulbarga District, Karnataka. South Asian Studies 14: 141153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paddayya, K, Thomas, P.K. & Joglekar, P.P.. 1995. A Neolithic butchering floor from Budihal, Gulbarga District, Karnataka. Man and Environment 20(2): 2331.Google Scholar
Piggott, S. 1950. Prehistoric India. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rainbird, P. 2002a. Making sense of petroglyphs: the sound of rock art. In David, B. & Wilson, M. (eds.), Inscribed Landscapes: Marking and Making Place: 93103. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Rainbird, P. 2002b. Marking the body, marking the land – body as history, land as history: tattooing and engraving in Oceania. In Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M. & Tarlow, S. (eds.), Thinking Through the Body: Archaeologies of Corporeality: 233–47. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rami Reddy, V. 1971. Rock paintings and bruisings in Andhra Pradesh. The Eastern Anthropologist 24(3): 289–96.Google Scholar
Sassaman, K.E. 1998. Lithic technology and the hunter-gatherer sexual division of labour. In Hays-Gilpin, K. & Whitley, D.S. (eds.), Reader in Gender Archaeology: 159–71. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Scarre, C. 1989. Painting by resonance. Nature 338: 382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Settar, S. & Sontheimer, G.D.. (eds.) 1982. Memorial Stones: A Study of Their Origin, Significance and Variety. Dharwad: Institute of Indian Art History, and Heidelberg: South Asia Institute.Google Scholar
Sillitoe, P. & Hardy, K.. 2003. Living lithics: ethnoarchaeology in Highland Papua New Guinea. Antiquity 77: 555–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subbarao, B. 1947. Archaeological explorations in Bellary. Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 8: 209–24.Google Scholar
Subbarao, B. 1948. Stone Age Cultures of Bellary. Poona: Deccan College.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C. 1990. The power of place: cross-cultural responses to natural and cultural landscapes of stone and earth. In Vastokas, J.M. , Paper, J. & Taçon, P.S.C. (eds.), Perspectives of Canadian Landscape: Native Traditions: 1143. York University (Ont.): Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C. 1991. The power of stone: symbolic aspects of stone use and tool development in western Arnhem Land, Australia. Antiquity 65: 192207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thapar, R. 1981. Death and the hero, in Humphreys, S.C. & King, H. (eds.), Mortality and Immortality: The Anthropology and Archaeology of Death, 293315. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tuzin, D. 1984. Miraculous voices: the auditory experience of numinous objects. Current Anthropology 25(5): 579–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitley, D.S. (ed.) 2001. Handbook of Rock Art Research. Oxford: Altamira.Google Scholar
Zeuner, F.E. 1960. On the origin of the cinder mounds of the Bellary district, India. Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology 2: 3744.Google Scholar