Recently, a Mesolithic period rock painting depicting a person tilling a piece of land has been found in Orvakallu village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.

Key findings:

• The paintings were made with “natural white kaolin and red ochre pigments”, 
• Ochre is a pigment composed of clay, sand, and ferric oxide.
• Kaolinite is a soft, earthy, and usually white mineral produced by the chemical weathering of aluminum silicate minerals like feldspar.
• These paintings throw light on aspects of the social life and culture of the people who lived in the area.
• One of the paintings depicted a man catching a wild goat with his left hand while wielding a hook-like implement to control it.
• Another showed two couples standing with their hands raised while a child stood behind them.

What is the Mesolithic period?

• It is also called Middle Stone Age which existed between the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age).
• Timeframe: This period is generally considered to have occurred between approximately 12,000-10,000 years ago
• Lifestyle: During the Mesolithic period, human societies were predominantly hunter-gatherer communities.
• People relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant resources for their sustenance.
• Stone tools found during this period are generally tiny, and are called microliths.
• Microliths were probably stuck onto handles of bone or wood to make tools such as saws and sickles.
• At the same time, older varieties of tools continued to be in use