What is Mesolithic-era?
The Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic.
The additional "Mesolithic" category was added as an intermediate category by Hodder Westropp in 1866.
The Mesolithic Age, which means Middle Stone Age, was the second part of the Stone Age.
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In India, it spanned around 9,000 B.C. to 4,000 B.C.
The people of this age lived on hunting, fishing, and food gathering initially but later on they also domesticated animals.
The characteristic tools of this age were Microliths.
The people of this age practised painting.
The paintings depicted birds, animals, and human beings.
Example :Rock shelters in Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh.
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Mesolithic sites in India
Bagor - Rajasthan
Langhnaj - Gujarat
Adamgarh, Bhimbetka - Madhya Pradesh
Mohrana Pahara - Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh
Recent findings in Guntur
A Mesolithic period rock painting depicting a person tilling a piece of land has been found in Orvakallu village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.
One of the paintings depicted a man catching wild goat with his left hand while wielding a hook-like implement to control it.
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Another showed two couple standing with their hands raised while a child stood behind them.
Painted figure of a man holding a plough and appearing to be tilling land — an indication,“of a semi-settled life pattern” in which members of this community cultivated crops.
Paintings were made with “natural white kaolin and red ochre pigments”.
Ochre (clay + sand + ferric oxide)
Kaolinite is soft, earthy and usually white mineral produced by the chemical weathering of aluminium silicate minerals like feldspar.
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