In News
- Experts have raised concerns that the construction of a petrochemical refinery in Barsu village of Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district might damage around 250 prehistoric geoglyphs found in the area.
What are Geoglyphs?
- Geoglyphs are a form of prehistoric rock art, created on the surface of laterite plateaus by removing a part of the rock surface through an incision, picking,carving or abrading.
- They can be in the form of rock paintings, etchings, cup marks and ring marks.
Ratnagiri’s prehistoric rock art
- Clusters of geoglyphs are spread across the Konkan coastline in Maharashtra and Goa, spanning around 900 km.
- Ratnagiri district has more than 1,500 pieces of such art, also called “Katal shilpa,” spread across 70 sites.
- Age: According to carbon dating, these sites are believed to be over 12,000 –20,000 years old.
- The sites are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
Figures depicted in the geoglyphs
- The figures depicted in the geoglyphs include humans and animals such as deer, elephant, tiger, monkey, wild boar, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, cattle, pig, rabbit, and monkey.
- They also include a high number of reptilian and amphibian creatures such as tortoises and alligators, aquatic animals such as sharks and stingrays, and birds like peacocks.
Significance of Ratnagiri’s rock art
- Ratnagiri’s rock art is evidence of the continued existence of human settlements from the Mesolithic (middle stone age) to the early historic era.
- The geoglyphs also show the existence of certain types of fauna that are no longer present in the region today.
- Imagery from these sites shows how people “adapted to ephemeral wetlands in a dry-arid plateau having shallow rock pools, streams and watercourses”.
Inclusion in UNESCO’s Tentative List
- In April 2022, these sites in the Konkan region were added to a tentative list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.
- The UNESCO listing mentions “Konkan geoglyphs.” However, elsewhere, the term petroglyph (literally, “rock symbol/character”) is also used.
- UNESCO’s tentative world heritage list mentions seven sites with petroglyphs in Ratnagiri district — Ukshi, Jambharun, Kasheli, Rundhe Tali, Devihsol, Barsu and Devache Gothane, one in Sindhudurg district –Kudopi village, and nine sites at Phansamal in Goa.
Source: IE
