Among the names of famous hill stations and easily accessible tourist destinations in the country, one can easily mistake Bhimbetka as a less attractive site housing dull caves paintings and dilapidated rock shelters in a remote location.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. The site - located in the heart of the country in Madhya Pradesh - is home to features and paintings that date back to the stone age. India’s oldest art gallery by some accounts, Bhimbetka hosts first signs of humans in India - engraved on the cave walls over 30,000 years ago.

All these paintings, however, do not belong to the same era, giving evidence of the use caves by humans through various periods.

According to a report in the Mint, the oldest drawings found in Bhimbetka are from the Upper Paleolithic Era. These paintings, in hues of green and red, depict large animals like bison, elephants and tigers in the forests in the region.