Bhondsi Petroglyphs Explained: How an Aravalli Wildlife Trail Uncovered India's Prehistoric Past

Rock art — the two broad types: Prehistoric rock art is generally divided into two categories. Petroglyphs are images made by carving, engraving, pecking, bruising or scratching into a rock surface — that is, they are removed or incised. Pictographs, by contrast, are images painted or drawn onto rock using pigments (such as red ochre/haematite or white kaolin). The Bhondsi find belongs to the first category — engravings cut into the rock.

What was found at Bhondsi: The reported markings include cupules (small, deliberately ground cup-shaped hollows), geometric grids, a large foot-shaped engraving and arrangements that may have served as stone game boards. Such non-utilitarian markings are read by archaeologists as evidence of symbolic or ritual behaviour rather than mere tool-use.

Why the engraving medium matters: At Bhondsi the carvings are on quartzite — a hard metamorphic rock typical of the Aravallis. Quartzite was also a favoured raw material for Stone Age tool-making, so the same landscape provided both the canvas for engravings and the material for tools.

The core claim: Researchers argue that the Bhondsi landscape preserves traces of several prehistoric phases together — from the earliest tool-making cultures through to later symbolic and social life. This continuity, rather than any single spectacular object, is what gives the site scholarly value: it suggests humans returned to and used the same area over very long timescales.

Tool-making to symbolism: The presence of handaxes and cleavers (hallmarks of the Acheulean/Lower Palaeolithic) alongside later cupules and rock-art markings is interpreted as a transition from purely functional stone technology toward ritual, symbolic and social expression — for instance, art, possible game boards and markers of community life.

The cognitive-shift idea: The Delhi University scholar cited the French archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan, who treated such hand-made engravings on rock as evidence of a cognitive shift — the emergence of abstract, symbolic thinking in early humans. This framing places rock art within the larger story of human cognitive evolution.

Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age): Conventionally dated in India from around 500,000 years ago (some sites push back further) to about 10,000 BCE, it is sub-divided into Lower (handaxes, cleavers — the Acheulean tradition), Middle (flake tools, scrapers, borers; decline of handaxes) and Upper Palaeolithic (blades, burins, bone tools). It coincides with the Pleistocene (Ice Age) and a hunting-gathering, nomadic way of life.

Mesolithic (Middle/Late Stone Age): Roughly 10,000–6,000 BCE, marked by microliths (tiny, finely worked stone tools, often hafted), the beginnings of animal domestication, and a flowering of rock paintings depicting hunting and community scenes. It is to this later phase that scholars tentatively assign the Bhondsi cupules and markings.

Neolithic and after: The Neolithic (New Stone Age, ~6,000 BCE onward) brought settled agriculture, pottery and polished tools, followed by the Chalcolithic (Stone-Copper) cultures. The dating of the Bhondsi engravings is still provisional: a scholar has linked the site's tool activity to a Middle Palaeolithic horizon, while the rock art itself remains scientifically undated and awaits formal analysis by the ASI.

Definition and origin: The Acheulean is the stone-tool tradition of the Lower Palaeolithic, named after the site of Saint-Acheul in France. Its signature artefacts are handaxes and cleavers, made by bifacial working — flaking a stone core or large flake on both faces to create a symmetrical cutting tool.

Why it is important: Acheulean handaxes are among the most widespread and longest-lasting human artefacts, and their standardised, symmetrical form is often read as a marker of advancing planning and motor skills. In India, classic Acheulean sites include Attirampakkam (Tamil Nadu) — which has yielded some of the oldest Acheulean dates outside Africa — along with the Belan, Son and Narmada valleys and Bhimbetka. The Bhondsi hand axe places the Aravalli site within this deep Lower Palaeolithic horizon.

What a cupule is: A cupule is a small, roughly hemispherical, human-made depression ground or pecked into rock. They are among the oldest and most globally widespread forms of rock art, found across continents, yet remain among the least understood — their exact purpose (ritual, symbolic, counting, fertility, sound-making) is debated.

The Indian connection: India is central to cupule research. The Auditorium Cave at Bhimbetka preserves a cupule and a meandering line of Acheulian age, considered among the oldest known rock art in the world, while Daraki-Chattan cave in the Chambal valley contains around 500 cupules assigned to the Palaeolithic. The dozens of cupules at Bhondsi add a new node to this picture in the Aravallis.

Geological profile: The Aravalli Range is among the oldest fold-mountain systems in India (and the world), dating to the Proterozoic era and forming part of the ancient Indian Shield (Aravalli-Delhi orogenic belt). It runs roughly 670–700 km from near Delhi, through southern Haryana and Rajasthan, to Gujarat (Ahmedabad); its highest peak is Guru Shikhar in Mount Abu (1,722 m). Long erosion has worn it into low, rugged ridges and ravines.

Ecological and archaeological value: The Aravallis act as a green and ecological barrier — checking the eastward spread of the Thar Desert, recharging groundwater for the NCR, and supporting wildlife (including leopards). The same rugged, quartzite-rich terrain that sheltered prehistoric humans now preserves their tools and engravings. Earlier Aravalli finds — cave paintings and rock shelters at Mangar Bani (Faridabad, 2021) and petroglyphs at Badshahpur Tethar (Sohna, 2023) — show the Bhondsi cluster is part of a much larger prehistoric landscape.

Bhimbetka (the benchmark): The Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh's Raisen district are a UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 2003), with a continuous record of paintings from the Mesolithic into historical times and the oldest known petroglyphs (Acheulian cupules). It is the standard against which other Indian rock art is read.

Other notable sites: These include Daraki-Chattan (Chambal valley cupules), the Konkan petroglyphs/geoglyphs of coastal Maharashtra (on UNESCO's Tentative List), and the Edakkal caves in Kerala. Within this map, the Aravalli sites are distinctive for showing prehistoric activity in the north-western, semi-arid zone close to the modern NCR.

The threats: Archaeologists have warned that the Bhondsi site is vulnerable to the land mafia, illegal mining and construction pressure in the Aravallis, and general neglect. Most of the roughly 20 reported Aravalli prehistoric sites remain unsurveyed, undated and unprotected, and a long-pending proposal for a detailed survey of the wider Mangar region has seen little progress.

The protection framework: Protection of such sites falls under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (AMASR Act), 1958, administered by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for centrally protected monuments, with state archaeology departments for state-protected sites. The Constitution reinforces this through Article 49 (State's duty to protect monuments of national importance) and Article 51A(f) (Fundamental Duty of citizens to value and preserve the country's composite culture and heritage).

Scientific documentation and dating should be prioritised — ASI and the Haryana Archaeology Department need to move from a brief report to systematic excavation, mapping and absolute dating (using methods suited to engravings and associated deposits) so that the chronology is established on firm evidence rather than provisional estimates. Pending such study, the site should be legally notified and protected under the AMASR Act / state heritage rules and physically secured against mining, encroachment and the land mafia. Given that the Aravallis are simultaneously an ecological and archaeological landscape, a joint approach linking forest, environment and archaeology departments — along the lines of the recently constituted central committee for the region — is needed. Finally, involving local communities and the wildlife enthusiasts who first reported the site, and developing responsible heritage awareness and eco-archaeo-tourism, can build the local stake required for long-term protection.