The region of South Asia, comprising present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, was inhabited 500,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence from Stone Age sites. These early Stone Age societies gave way to middle Stone Age Mesolithic communities. Bhimbetka, at the foothills of the Vindhya Mountains, near present-day Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, was a middle Stone Age site. The paintings created on the walls of rock shelters about 9,000–10,000 years ago by the Bhimbetka people are the earliest art forms to be found in India. In 7000 bc, Neolithic communities emerged in Mehrgarh, in the area now occupied by Baluchistan, Pakistan. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers evolved into farmers in Mehrgarh, the earliest settlement of its kind in South Asia.
Bhimbetka was a Mesolithic site which came into prominence because of its prehistoric rock paintings. The rock shelters at Bhimbetka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are made up of five clusters of natural rock and display graphic paintings of life during the middle Stone Age period. The paintings were discovered by accident in 1958 by archaeologist Dr V S Wakankar. He was travelling by train to Bhopal when he saw some unusual formations on the rock shelters. On closer inspection, they turned out to be prehistoric.
The paintings depict the life of the people living in the caves, as well as the animals and vegetation in the surrounding area. One rock, known as the ‘Zoo Rock’, has pictures of elephants, sambhar, bisons and deer, while another rock displays a peacock, snake and deer with the sun. Some of the rocks show hunting scenes with hunters carrying bows, arrows, swords and shields. In one of the caves, a drawing shows a bison chasing a hunter, while another rock displays a human figure with horned headgear and an animal mask. The paints used by the Mesolithic people at Bhimbetka were made of coloured earth, vegetable dyes, roots and animal fat. Brushes were fashioned from fibrous twigs.
Mehrgarh, situated in the Kachi plains to the west of the Indus River in what is now Baluchistan, Pakistan, was a Neolithic community in 7000 b.c. It is known as the earliest farming settlement in South Asia and the first to use pottery. The inhabitants of Mehrgarh lived in buildings made of mud-brick and cultivated barley and wheat as crops, using stone tools to harvest them. They also shaped ornaments with these tools. The communities, thought to be of indigenous origin, evolved over time—buildings grew larger and the range of handicrafts expanded to include basketry and cotton textiles. Seals made of terracotta and bone, and decorated with geometric designs, were also a popular item of manufacture. Tools and ornaments were interred with the dead; the Mehrgarh people buried their females with more goods than they did the males.
The Mehrgarh period is divided into Mehrgarh I (7000 bc–5500 bc), Mehrgarh II (5500 bc–4800 bc) and Mehrgarh III (4800 bc–3500 bc). Copper came into use at Mehrgarh by 5000 bc. The people used a variety of production processes, including stone and copper drills, and kilns and crucibles for melting copper.
By 3500 bc, Mehrgarh covered an area of 75 hectares and carried out trade with neighbouring communities in the Quetta Valley, evident from the discovery of lapis lazuli beads. Mehrgarh seems to have been abandoned between 2600 bc and 2000 bc, when the Indus Valley Civilisation started to develop.