| Shankargarh | |
| — city — | |
| Coordinates | |
| Country | India |
| State | Uttar Pradesh |
| District(s) | Allahabad |
| Population | 13,116 (2001[update]) |
| Time zone | IST (UTC+05:30) |
Shankargarh is a town and a nagar panchayat in Allahabad district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
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As of 2001[update] the India census[1], Shankargarh had a population of 13,116. Males constitute 53% of the population and females 47%. Shankargarh has an average literacy rate of 61%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 70%, and female literacy is 52%. In Shankargarh, 17% of the population is under 6 years of age.
The main occupation of local population is mining activity, stone quarrying as the land is not much fertile. The Raja of Shankargarh has mining rights over 46 villages (covering an area of 150 sq km) in perpetuity and gives the rights to contractors who in turn hire local labourers to extract minerals.[2]
These caves were long known to the locals. They also knew about the prehistoric cave paintings but did not mention their age and value. But when labourers were pounding the rock face with hammers, hewing off chunks of stone to sell for silica, the locals were alarmed. They were sure it was wrong to destroy them and fetched the police superintendent from the neighbouring village. Superintendent Vijay Kumar recognized the possible value of the paintings, and exhorted the labourers to lay down their tools.
The red paintings show dancing people, men on horseback and a tribe hunting a bison with spears. First examination gives an age between 10,000 and 30,000 years, which is the Upper Palaeolithic era. They can not only be found at the cave entrance wall, but also inside the cave system. There are scenes from prehistoric life as well as detailed diagrams of the internal organs of animals. This resembles the drawings of Australian aboriginies. The cave also contains descarded tools of the painters.
This cave is not open to the public in the moment. There will probably be a certain time of scientific research and the cave will be closed some years. But the Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Department is already planning to build a road into the jungle to the cave.
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