Bronze sculptures in India

Quiz
Name: Rashi Gambhir
Register no. : RA1811003010227
1. The first major Bronze-Age civilizations in the Indian subcontinent were based
around what natural feature?
a. The Ganges River
b. The Indus River
c. The Himalayan Mountains
d. The Thar Desert
2. Apart from bronze, Bronze-Age civilizations are largely defined by the first major
appearance of what?
a. Iron
b. Farming
c. Urbanization
d. Trade
3. Harappan civilizations displayed most of the expected traits of a Bronze-Age society,
except what?
a. Writing
b. Well-organized cities
c. The development of bronze
d. A centralized government

Cultural stonework in India in the form of primitive cupule art

Discuss the following questions, alternately, find answers for them:

When Were Cupules Made?

The oldest cupule-bearing rock is the rounded cobble discovered in the primordial Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania,
dating to approximately 1.7 million BCE. Although not unlike one or two examples from the much later Upper
Paleolithic era, the Oldowan specimens are probably utilitarian hollows rather than exemplars of cupule art. Be
this as it may, true cupules have occurred from the earliest tool-making cultures. Indeed, the oldest art on
every populated continent consists of linear grooves and cupules. In Australia, for instance, the
oldest Kimberley Rock Art and Burrup Peninsula Rock Art features various types and patterns of cupules.

Cupule art dates from as early as the Lower Paleolithic era, pre-dating the more celebrated Gravettian and
Magdalenian cave painting by hundreds of millennia. However, cupule-making is not just a type of Paleolithic
art. In India, for example, home of the Bhimbetka Petroglyphs - the world's earliest art - cupules were also
made during the era of Mesolithic (10,000-6,000 BCE) and Neolithic art (6,000-2,000 BCE onwards) as well as
the preceding Upper Paleolithic. In Europe, many cupules have been dated to Neolithic megaliths and other
sites of megalithic art from both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, and even the Middle Ages.
What Are the Main Characteristics of Cupules?
~ Cupules are typically found in groups, often numbering several hundred (even a thousand) in a single
location. Singletons are highly unusual. Almost all specimens are between 1.5 and 10 centimetres in diameter,
but larger examples have been found. Average depth is between 10 and 12 millimetres (less on very hard rock)
although examples over 100 mm deep have been found. They can occur on horizontal, sloping or vertical rock-
surfaces, but very rarely on overhead rock ceilings: a notable exception being at Grotte Boussaingault in
France. As a rough guide, cupules found on surfaces with an incline less than 45 degrees comprise over 50
percent of all known examples.

A significant percentage of cupules occur on boulders rather than rock floors or cave walls, as exemplified by
specimens found at Sai Island, Sudan; La Ferrassie, France; Auditorium Cave and Daraki-Chattan, India.

Many cupules, including the oldest specimens at Bhimbetka and Daraki-Chattan, occur on very hard, erosion-
resistant rock types,such as quartzite, gneissic granite and even crystalline quartz. However, given the extreme
antiquity of the genre, taphonomic logic dictates that this is only to be expected.

It is noteworthy that some cupule-sites have been re-worked by later artists, sometimes several thousands of
years later. For instance, one cupule at Moda Bhata, India, created about 7,000 BCE, was re-pounded about
200 CE.

Where Do Cupules Occur?

In general, cupules exist in nearly all of the world’s petroglyph-rich zones.

They have been discovered throughout the Americas, including: the United States, especially in the west; in
Canada (Herschel Petroglyph site, Saskatchewan); in Mexico (Cerro Calera); Costa Rica, Panama (Chiriqui site),
Colombia (Roca de Los Afiladores, Roca de Las Cúpulas, Roca de Las Espirales, Roca La Familia and Roca Del
Mangón); Brazil (Caiçaras or Riacho Santana, Piauí); Argentina (Cueva Epullán Grande); Peru (Lungumari
Puntilla, Toro Muerto complex); Bolivia (Achocalla, Inca Huasi, Lakatambo, Toro Muerto, Cochabamba);
Guyana, Suriname, and Chile. Outside the Americas, cupules exist throughout the continent of Asia,
including India, Inner Mongolia, eastern Siberia, China, Nepal and especially Japan - in fact, the Japanese trove
is probably the best classified of all cupule art. In the Middle East, cupules have been discovered across the
Arabian peninsula. In Europe, there are a great many specimens, and Estonian cupules comprise all the locally
known rock art. In both Macedonia and Ireland, cupules constitute over half of all known petroglyphs. Other
European sites have been found in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark and Scandinavia. In Africa,
cupules are widespread from the Sahara to South Africa, including tribal art sites in Kenya, Botswana, and
elsewhere. In Oceania, cupules have been discovered on many Pacific islands, Papua New Guinea, New Ireland,
the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. A huge number occur in Australia, mostly in the north, and
Tasmania, but none in New Zealand.

What Are the Oldest Known Cupules?

The earliest known cupule art, dating to between 290,000 and 700,000 BCE, are in central India. Two quartzite
caves in the Madhya Pradesh region of central India - Auditorium Cave at Bhimbetka and another rock shelter
at Daraki-Chattan - have disclosed a number of cupules sandwiched between a solid upper level stratum of the
Middle Paleolithic and a lower level belonging to the Lower Paleolithic Acheulian culture. Due to the
immoveability of the former, the cupules at Bhimbetka have been assigned a minimum age of 290,000 years,
which is equivalent to the latest date ever known for Acheulian debris. The Daraki-Chattan cupule specimens
(nearly 500 in total) are thought to date from the same period, if not earlier. Archeological investigation has
confirmed they were made by humans who used chopping tools similar to the Oldowan culture of the early
Lower Paleolithic.
In Europe, the oldest known cupule art (and also the earliest rock art) is the series of 18 cuples discovered on
the underside of a limestone slab covering the Neanderthal grave of a child in the French cave of La Ferrassie.
Although part of a Middle Paleolithic Mousterian graveyard, this particular funerary art is dated between
70,000 and 40,000 BCE (Bednarik). Other European cupules exist in several other late Mousterian sites as well
as locations associated with early Aurignacian art (40,000-25,000 BCE) and Magdalenian art (15,000-10,000
BCE).

Cupules are relatively common in African art, but we have no clear evidence of their antiquity. A recent
archeological discovery of quartzite cupules in the southern Kalahari (Korannaberg region) has revealed fossils
and tools dating from the Acheulian period of the Middle Stone Age, but precise dating of the petroglyphs has
not yet occurred. The same is true of a large cupule reported from Sai Island, Sudan, which may be around
200,000 years old.

In Australia, the tradition of cupule-making dates back - in all probability - to the early colonization period from
60,000 BCE onwards. However, the known cupule-sites are mainly shelters made from sandstone, which is
much less climate-resistant than granite or quatzite. So it seems unlikely that much paleo-art has survived.
Even so, several sites could prove to be tens of thousands of years old. Leading candidates for the oldest
cupule art in Australia include: a group of cupules in the granite rock shelter of Turtle Rock, situated in
northern Queensland; the scores of cupule panels in the granitic region of the Pilbara; the cupules found deep
in the limestone caves of southern Australia. Any or all of these petroglyphs could be between 30,000 and
60,000 years old. We await positive tests.

What is the Purpose of Cupules? Why Were They Made?

No paleo-expert has yet produced a convincing explanation of the cultural or artistic meaning of cupules: nor
should we expect one. Cupules are first and foremost a pattern of behaviour - a pattern common to nearly all
known prehistoric cultures around the globe - and this cultural behaviour of our earliest ancestors can only be
comprehended after a great deal more research into the worldwide beliefs and values of Paleolithic Man.

Of the current theories, most associate cupules with fertility rites, or "increase ceremonies". For
instance, Bednarik cites a report by the learned archeologist Mountford, who witnessed the making of cupules
in central Australia in the 1940s as an increase ritual for the pink cockatoo. The rock out of which the cupules
were pounded was believed by Aborigines to contain the life essence of this bird, and the mineral dust rising
into the air as a result of this pounding was believed to fertilise the female cockatoos and thus increase their
production of eggs, which the Aborigines valued as a source of food. Bednarik uses this example to
demonstrate how futile it is to theorize about the meaning and purpose of ancient art without an
understanding of the ethnographic beliefs of its creator.