CHENNAI: A team of archaeologists who walked through dense forests after hearing from a local person about some mysterious ‘symbols’ inside a rock shelter has ended up making a great discovery.

The team found ten pre-historic rock paintings inside a rock dwelling/shelter in Viraliyur, a hamlet 32 km from Coimbatore. The images, mostly in red ochre and one in white, depict the figurines of animals, human, square and triangle patterns with decorative motifs and unidentified symbols.

Even though the “two ‘kissing deer’ and hunters with bow and arrow are done with great aesthetic sense, the signs and symbols found here attain significance as they raise questions about whether the prehistoric men were aware of geometry. The team, led by rock art expert KT Gandhirajan, said these paintings must have been created by different artists in three different periods.

“The red ochre paintings in this shelter might have been done during the neo-lithic period (3000-4000 BP (before present)) based on the subject and its executions. The paintings in white depict two hunters with a dagger. This could be belonged to iron age (2000–2500 BP),” said Gandhirajan, who with Kumaravel Ramasamy and Sudhahar Nalliappan, discovered the site.

How does the team calculate the date? “In many places in the Kongu region reported with iron age implements is additional support to date this painting,” he said.