GURGAON: From February, experts will survey a 600-hectare area of the Aravalis in Faridabad to look for any carvings, graffiti, tools or signs that could be dated back to the stone age.
The three-month survey comes in the wake of discoveries in the hills of Mangar and Sohna, where petroglyphs going back to the paleolithic era were found by environmentalists who accidentally chanced upon them.
The findings of the survey, which is only being carried out after a direction from the Supreme Court, could potentially influence the ruling on restarting mining in the region.
In 2009, the top court banned mining in three south Haryana districts – Gurgaon, Faridabad and Nuh – after noting the extensive ecological damage caused to the ancient hill range.
But the Haryana government approached SC two years back, seeking permission to restart quarrying of stones in Faridabad.
Hearing the case in November last year, SC directed the government to submit a report after a survey to check if there were any other paleolithic sites in the area that could be damaged if mining was allowed.
Stone carvings and tools believed to be from the upper paleolithic era, which began 40,000 years ago and lasted till around 10,000 years ago, were discovered in Kot and Mangar villages of Faridabad in 2021. An Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) team is working to carry out carbon dating of these carvings.
“If the findings are authenticated, then the area where these petroglyphs (rock carvings) were found need to be preserved. We plan to locate areas where there is a high concentration of such petroglyphs, so that they can be preserved, instead of the entire 600 hectares of land. The survey will identify areas that need to be excluded from any development plan,” said MD Sinha, principal secretary at the heritage and tourism department.
Banani Bhattacharyya, deputy director at the directorate of archaeology and museums, told TOI on Thursday that the survey will begin by February and a report will be submitted to the top court in May.
“We are working to finalise an expert team for the survey,” she said.
After the SC’s latest direction, a two-day survey by government officials across randomly selected spots in the 600-hectare area last December had thrown up possible prehistoric carvings and tools.
Around 45-50 sites were found over just 30-40 hectares of land in Dhauj, Faridabad. The findings included cupules (circular hollows made on rocks), sling balls, potshards, carvings and tools such as axes, cleavers, scrapers, blades, choppers, etc.
Bhattacharyya said the Aravali area might be the “most significant paleolithic sites” in the Indian sub-continent. “The site was continuously occupied through the palaeolithic time period. It needs more research to comprehend the evolution of tools in the context of human culture and evolution,” she said.
Wildlife researcher Sunil Harsana, who had posted a video on YouTube that led to the discovery of the paleolithic site in Mangar in 2021, asserted that the government needs to preserve the area.
“Petroglyphs are in open air sites, which gives easy access to anyone, and these run a risk of getting defaced,” he said.
Just six kilometres from Mangar, petrogylphs, hand- and footprints of humans and animals, and graffiti were discovered atop a hillock in Badshapur Tethar village of Sohna last year. These, too, are believed to be of the paleolithic era.
The Haryana government, in its application to the Supreme Court, has sought to restart mining in Khori Jamalpur, Sirohi, Dhauj, Alampur, Kot, Mangar and Mohabatabad villages of Faridabad.
Mining and quarrying stones have done irreversible damage to the Aravalis in neighbouring Rajasthan. In 2018, a Supreme Court-appointed committee found that 31 of 128 hills in Rajasthan’s Aravali regions had vanished in 50 years because of illegal mining. In Haryana, too, illegal mining and construction has flattened hillocks over a period of time.
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