Archaeologists unearth prehistoric tools in NCR’s only primary forest

HT first reported on July 14, 2021 that archaeologists have discovered cave paintings in a rocky and forested corner of Haryana, not far from the national capital, that they believe belong to the Upper Palaeolithic age.

HT reported last week that Mangar, comprising the village, and the sacred grove amid a rocky and hilly terrain, spread over 4,262 acres (of which 3,810 acres is the hill area), is among the most biodiversity rich areas of the Aravallis in the National Capital Region (NCR). The researchers have been carrying out surface exploration work in the region for a week.

Within Mangar village, Mangar Bani (677.12 acres) is NCR’s most sacred grove, and possibly the only patch of primary forest in the region. It is also home to around 240 species of birds and 15 species of mammals including leopards and hyenas.

Two archaeologists from the Academy for Archaeological Heritage Research and Training (AAHRT), Sanchi, and environmentalists from Gurugram have been exploring the hilly areas and three caves in Mangar. “We found a high number of such tools, providing enough evidence that the area is a significant archaeological site from a pre-historic point of view,” said SB Ota, former joint director general of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the head of AAHRT. Ota was among the main archaeologists who discovered the Anangpur site in Faridabad in 1991, also a Palaeolithic site.

The scoping survey was conducted by a joint team from AAHRT and Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR) in and around the Mangar Bani, Mangar, Bandhwari, Shilakhri Aravallis. The team was led by Ota, along with Niharika Shrivastava, and Chetan Agarwal, senior fellows with CEDAR and Sunil Harsana, research associate CEDAR.

The team also found several cave paintings, possibly much recent compared to the tools, which depict animal and nature inspired motifs in Mangar’s caves and hills.

Ota said the clues that sites in Haryana Aravallis were possible prehistoric sites first emerged in the 1990s, when certain pre-historic artefacts were found in Delhi. These were possibly transported with sand from Aravallis.

“It goes back to 1991 when I was working with the government. We were exploring the Aravallis in Anangpur. There were some reports from Delhi that these prehistoric tools were found. Sand goes from Aravallis to Delhi which is called Badarpur sand. People had reported that such artefacts found but they were not from Delhi, they came with the sand. So, we decided to explore areas from where the sand was coming. Until 1991 Aravallis were not explored. That brought us to Anangpur,” recollected Ota.

He said those artefacts were dislodged from original context. “I came to Mangar and Damdama in December 2023 after Chetan Agarwal, a Gurugram based forest analyst, informed me about the Mangar site. We did a survey near Damdama lake and found some artefacts. These belong to the Pleistocene. Presently, we are in Holocene, which is 11,000 years old. Human culture had its beginning with lower Palaeolithic tools. In India, the culture of these tools goes back to nearly 1.7 million years. There are a few methods to date these artefacts but we are planning to use the thermoluminescence method for the tools from Mangar,” said Ota.

Thermoluminescence dating is a method in archaeology. It measures the accumulated radiation dose of the time elapsed since the material containing crystalline minerals was heated or exposed to sunlight

Ota said that metal had not been discovered during the lower Palaeolithic age. “People were hunter gatherers. For them the hardest material was rocks. They used bones and wood also, but that may have been completely destroyed since those are organic materials. The reason we cannot find such artefacts easily near the Yamuna is because they would be buried in alluvium. One could find some in the in the Shivaliks, but the Aravallis are isolated in many ways and this area is particularly untouched,” he added.

Some archaeologists said that the documentation of such material needs to be methodical. “We must document these pre-historic remains and the cave paintings very methodically. We as archaeologists read patterns. This area needs to be conserved because of its natural and archaeological heritage,” said Shrivastava, an archaeologist focusing on pre-historic evidence in Bastar.

“These are very important sites. Mangar and the surrounding areas are precious because they show us how very early human populations lived. They may have settled there because the atmospheric condition was conducive for people to live and we can see they had decorated their rock shelters also with paintings. Near to Mangar, Anangpur is also extremely important, the site was excavated and important artefacts such as cleavers, hand axes were found. The entire Aravallis and the Delhi ridge also have huge potential that needs to be studied. There should be no destructive activities in these areas, and mining, if any, should stop immediately,” said Nandini Bhattacharya Sahu, joint director general, ASI.

The Aravalli range is one of the oldest fold mountain systems in the world and predates the formation of the Himalayan ranges. Its current form is reduced to residual hill ranges.

The range and its surrounding area are characterised by the occurrence of various archaeological evidence, including the Acheulean culture, Mesolithic, Rock Paintings, and Chalcolithic settlements. Besides, the historical remains of varied nature include petroglyphs and early historic and medieval settlements both on the foothill area as well as on hilltops, forts, water bodies.

Though Mangar meets all criteria for a forest, it has still not been classified as one by the Haryana government. A Supreme Court verdict in the TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs. Union of India & Others case on December 12, 1996, directed that “forests” would not only include those understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in government records irrespective of the ownership. However, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, exempts “unrecorded deemed forests” from being recognised under the modified law on forest conservation, effectively leaving areas such as Mangar Bani vulnerable.

HT reported on October 3, 2023 that the 2023 forest act will benefit real estate companies that own land in what was to be declared “deemed forest” in Haryana’s Aravallis. The revenue record for Mangar village from 1963-64 shows that the area is gair mumkin pahar (uncultivable land) and recorded as panchayat deh (owned by panchayat or common land). HT’s analysis of jamabandi papers (land records) in 2023 revealed that large parts of land in Mangar and Mangar Bani are owned by real estate and other companies.

Around 1973-74, around 3,809.63 acres of land in Mangar was mutated from panchayat deh to shamlat deh (common land vested with propietors) and further subdivided for private sale. The mutation was sanctioned on the basis of an order of a sub-judge in Ballabhgarh dated March 14, 1973, according to Agrawal.

“We knew that the Aravalli forests of Mangar and surrounding villages are a key groundwater recharge zone and wildlife habitat and corridor Now this survey has revealed its rich Palaeolithic past. We hope that the area is notified for archaeological protection, and also protected as a forest,” said Agarwal.