Edakkal Caves are two natural caves located 1,200 metres above sea level on
Ambukuthi Mala 25 km from Kalpetta in the Wayanad district of Kerala in India’s
Western Ghats. They lie besides an ancient trade route connecting the high mountains
of Mysore to the ports of Malabar coast. Inside the caves are pictorial writings believed
to be dating to at least 5000 BC, from the Neolithic man, indicating the presence of a
prehistoric civilization or settlement in this region. The Stone Age carvings of Edakkal
are rare and are the only known examples from south India.
Petroglyphs
These are not technically caves, but rather a cleft or rift approximately 96 feet (29 m)
by 22 feet (6.7 m), a 30-foot-deep (9.1 m) fissure caused by a piece of rock splitting
away from the main body. On one side of the cleft is a rock weighing several tons that
covers this cleft to form the ‘roof’ of the cave. The carvings are of human and animal
figures, tools used by humans and of symbols yet to be deciphered, suggesting the
presence of a prehistoric settlement.
The petroglyphs inside the cave are of at least three distinct types. The oldest may date
back to over 8,000 years. Evidences suggest that the Edakkal caves were inhabited
several times at different points in history.
The caves were accidentally discovered by Fred Fawcett, a police official of the
erstwhile Malabar state in 1890 who immediately recognised their anthropological and
historical importance. He subsequently wrote an article about them, attracting the
attention of scholars
Probable links with Indus valley civilization
The caves contain drawings that range over periods from as early as 5000 BC to
1000 BC. Recently the youngest group of paintings were in the news for a possible
connection to the Indus Valley Civilization.
Historian M.R. Raghava Varier of the Kerala state archaeology department identified a
sign “a man with jar cup” that is the most distinct motif of the Indus valley civilization.
The finding made in 2009 September indicates that the Harappan civilization was
active in the region. Interestingly, the “a man with jar cup” symbol from Edakkal
seems to be more similar to the Indus motif than those already known from Tamil
Nadu and Karnataka. Mr. Varier said “The discovery of the symbols are akin to that
of the Harappan civilisation having predominantly Dravidian culture and testimony to
the fact that cultural diffusion could take place. It is wrong to presume that the Indus
culture disappeared into thin air.” The scholar of Indus and the Tamil Brahmi scripts,
Mr. Iravatham Mahadevan said the findings were very significant called it a “major
discovery”.
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Edakkal Caves are two natural caves located 1,200 metres above sea level on
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