Rocks on a roll -gudiyam caves
CHENNAI:
Ramesh Yanthra and V. Vasantha Kumar’s documentary Gudiyam Caves: Stone Age Rock Shelters of South India takes you on a fascinating journey into the prehistoric rock shelters
Paleolithic caves hidden away in the hills 70km from Chennai? Well, who would have known? A handful of archaeologists, geologists, and forest officials apparently. And a former student of Government of Fine Arts College, who was so fascinated by the caves he stumbled across on a trekking holiday that he decided to make a 33-minute documentary about them. It was screened at the Cannes Festival this May.(GUDIYAM DOCUMENTARY FILM – ROCKS ON A ROLL)
"The caves are in the Gudiyam village, in the Thiruvallur district near Poondi reservoir, and I came across them three years ago," says Ramesh Yanthra and vasanth, who filmed the self-funded documentary last year. (DOCUMENTARY MAKES IT TO CANNES)"I saw a signboard in the village which said that this was a site of Paleolithic people and I was so intrigued that I visited the caves," adds Yanthra, who showed the documentary to a select audience on Saturday at the Tagore Film Centre (NFDC preview theatre).
Geologists in the city say the Gudiyam caves were originally discovered in 1863 by British geologist Robert Bruce Foote, who documented the existence of this prehistoric habitat in the Geological Survey of India (GSI). Subsequent digs by Archaeological Survey of India experts a century later uncovered tools made of stones used in the Paleolithic Era, more than two million years ago.
credit : ALLINONE INDIA
