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New rock art discoveries in the Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Paul S.C. Taçon
Affiliation:
School of Humanities, Gold Coast campus, Griffith University, Qld 4222, Australia (Email: p.tacon@griffith.edu.au)
Nicole Boivin
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PG, UK
Jamie Hampson
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK
James Blinkhorn
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PG, UK
Ravi Korisettar
Affiliation:
Department of History and Archaeology, Karnatak University, Dharwad 580 003, India
Michael Petraglia
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PG, UK

Abstract

The authors have surveyed the little known paintings of the Kurnool area in central south India, bringing to light the varied work of artists active from the Palaeolithic to the present day. By classifying the images and observing their local superposition and global parallels, they present us with an evolving trend – from the realistic drawings of large deer by hunter-gatherers, through the symbolic humans of the Iron Age to the hand-prints of more recent pilgrims and garish life-size modern ‘scarecrows’. Here are the foundations for one of the world's longest sequences of rock art.

Type
Research articles
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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