The Caravan

Rocks of Ages

The day was about to end. The last rays of the setting sun glimmered through a partly cloudy sky. My guide, who had been showing me since the morning around the village of Isko—famous for its prehistoric rock art—parked his motorbike near the Punkri Barwadih megalithic site near Barkagaon, twenty-five kilometres from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. The light was adequate for me to quickly capture a few photos of the two stunning menhirs.

Later that evening, I met Subhashis Das, an independent researcher who has spent over two decades studying the megaliths of Jharkhand, which have been erected for millennia by the tribal communities of the region. He explained that a megalith is a living entity and that the Punkri Barwadih site is

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