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Contents
What is the News?
Archaeologists in Haryana have estimated that cave paintings discovered at a prehistoric site in Faridabad’s Mangar Bani hill forest may be up to lakh years old.
What did the Archeologists discover?
- Archaeologists have discovered cave paintings at a prehistoric site in Faridabad’s Mangar Bani hill forest.
- They believe that these paintings belong to the Upper Palaeolithic age, which could potentially make them one of the oldest cave arts in the country.
Significance of this discovery:
- This is the first time that a prehistoric site with cave paintings and rock art of a large magnitude has been found in Haryana.
- However, tools from the Palaeolithic age have been identified earlier in parts of the Aravallis.
- Moreover, the latest discovery will take the history of Haryana further back in time.
Facts Mentioned in the Article:
About Palaeolithic Age:
- Palaeolithic is derived from the Greek word ‘palaeo’, which means old and ‘lithic’ meaning stone.Therefore, the term Palaeolithic age refers to the old Stone Age.
- Palaeolithic age in India is divided into three phases: Early or Lower Palaeolithic (50,0000 – 100,000 BC), Middle Palaeolithic(100,000 – 40,000 BC) and Upper Palaeolithic (40,000 – 10,000 BC).
About Radiocarbon Dating:
- Radiocarbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
- Method:
- The basis of radiocarbon dating is simple: all living things absorb carbon from the atmosphere and food sources around them, including a certain amount of natural, radioactive carbon-14.
- When the plant or animal dies, they stop absorbing, but the radioactive carbon that they’ve accumulated continues to decay.
- Hence, measuring the amount leftover gives an estimate as to how long something has been dead.