Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in the Vindhyas: a long-term perspective on climate change and its implications for sustainable development of the forestry communities

of the Vindhyas

by

Ajay Pratap, M.Phil & Ph.D. Cantab.,Project Director,

ICHR Rock Art of Mirzapur Project (2009-11),Associate Professor,

Department of History,Faculty of Social Sciences,Banaras Hindu University,

Varanasi – 221 005

Abstract

• This paper will discuss palaeoenviromental change in the Vindhyas, through the agency of Vindhyan Rock Paintings, which indicate benchmark changes in Vindhyan ecology during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Whereas during terminal Pleistocene the ecological balance between prehistoric human cultures and the local ecology was optimal, with low human population density, juxtaposed with and a high density of faunal populations, in a landscape verdant with thick forest cover, swamps and marshes; the development and growth of agriculture around 7-8th Millennium BCE and clearings for agriculture led to removal of forest cover from the Vindhyan Range.

• The growth of the first highland agricultural systems fuelled population growth, and coupled with climatic change (a warm period) ensuing with the Holocene, the subsequent migration of both human and faunal populations to the sub-montane regions took place.

• Excavations by archaeologists at sites like Chopani Mando, Damdama, Mahagara and Mahadaha, have established that the earliest of lowland Mesolithic and Neolithic settlements occur in the valleys of rivers like Belan, Chopan, Betwa, Sone, Ken and finally the Valley of the Ganges River itself.

• The continuing depletion of Vindhyan floral and faunal populations will make the sustainable development of this area impossible in the not too distant future. The Vindhyan ranges evidence a mountainous rural heartland of Uttar Pradesh inhabited by several forestry communities practicing agro-pastoralism, for whom the sustainable development model is indeed the only appropriate model for development. However, the march and pace of urbanization, in the Vindhyan ranges, seriously jeopardizes these subsistence economies.

Fauna and Climate at Terminal Pleistocene

Mukkha Dari

Mukkha Dari

Chuna Dari

Likhaniya Dari

Morhana Pahar

Morhana

Morhana

Wyndham

Images of Hunting

Images of Agriculture

Images of Humans and Animals Suggestive of Domestication

Human Stress

Decorative

Images of `Plenty?’

Thank You

• Ajay Pratap

• Department of History

• Faculty of Social Sciences

• Banaras Hindu University