Rare Butchery Scene Found in 30,000-year-old Rock Art in India

Haaretz ^ | Thursday, April 30, 2020 | Ruth Schuster

[SunkenCiv]

Rock shelter No. 6, where the unfortunate ungulate and its innards were depicted, was the richest in art of the sites newly explored. It had 76 paintings, many of animals and people, as well as a flower and some sort of bird. "The bird figure found at Maser is similar to a crane or a saurus, but it is faded and difficult to identify," Shaik says. There are other images too eroded to identify at all.

The deer with legs akimbo and stylized innards was painted together with one human figure bearing a bow and arrows walking toward it, and a second one, with an arrow in his left hand, squatting by the deer. A bow and spear lies by them on the ground. "Another partially visible arrow is depicted sticking out of the belly of the deer, suggesting that the deer had been hunted," the authors write.

The human seems to be working on removing that arrow from the animal, which they postulate is a Barasingha swamp deer, which used to throng the whole region, but now only clings on in parts of India and Nepal.

Moreover, another human figure painted above these figures on the panel seems to be watching them. He and the postulated butcher are wearing feathered headdresses, Shauk and Chauhan write.

If their interpretation of the ancient faded drawings is accurate, the use of feathers is interesting in and of itself.

[SunkenCiv]

Image of a deer being butchered in Maser rock shelter No. 6, India, dating to about 30,000 years ago [Saleem Shaikh]

[SunkenCiv]

[marktwain]

Australian aboriginals never adopted the bow. People around them had the bow; the Australians never adopted it.

[Grimmy]

Not being snarky or smarta**.

I honestly believe the cave paintings were school oriented back in their day.

Young boys need to start getting the 411 on critters and kill points/hunting tactics *before* going out with the group and getting themselves killed.

Trying to teach them *after* they got themselves killed would be much more difficult.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Gentle Giraffe?

Ok, she gave me a laugh for the day.

the prehistoric peoples would meticulously use all parts of animals they hunted, out of respect for them and their environment.

Or it might have been to impress Una the hot babe that lives two caves down.

[BenLurkin]

Interesting thought

[Grimmy]

Or it might have been to impress Una the hot babe that lives two caves down.

************

Or, because the critters were difficult to track over long distances and dangerous to close with and kill once tracked down, so use every bit possible to put off having to do it again for as long as possible.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

That is a point. Everything was in short supply and took forever to make.

[Don W]

Why would these “educational” drawings be in such inaccessible places if they were learning tools?

[Grimmy]

Not all of them are.

And some might have been part of “initiation into the mysteries” kinda thing.

Dark cave. Flickering torch light. Shrooms. Critters dancing on the walls. Shaman doing his shaman routine.

That kind of thing.

And the question right back at you. If it was art, why in such inaccessible places? for those paintings that are in inaccessible places.

And, if you’re a culture accustomed to going into and out of caves for various things and purposes, is their idea of inaccessible the same as our own?

[wildbill]

I don’t see it.