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CategoriesRock art sites
Paintings and engravings from the deepest human past.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Pyramid
Epiclassic Bajío 600–900 CE · Bajío (Peralta/Plazuelas tradition)
Second sector of Guanajuato ballcourt city with petroglyph boulder field and U-pyramid 12 m.
🇺🇸 United States · Archaeological wonder
Pueblo II–III Bonito 1000–1150 CE · Ancestral Pueblo (Chacoan)
Chacoan Sun Dagger butte: three slabs create dagger beam on spirals marking solstices and lunar standstill.
🇮🇳 India · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Medieval (100,000 BCE – 2nd century BCE – 1500 CE) · South Asian hunter-gatherer to early historic
Cluster of about 750 sandstone shelters on the Vindhyan fringe with a layered sequence of paintings spanning Mesolithic hunting scenes to historic horsemen and battle processions.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Late Neolithic to Qin–Han (3000 BCE – 200 CE) · Qiang-related pastoralist Hexi corridor culture
Two-panel deer and archer ochre hillside at Yellow River east bank, 3000–4000 BP.
🇫🇮 Finland · Rock art
Neolithic–Bronze Age (4000–1000 BCE) · Comb Ceramic / Pit-Comb Ware hunter-gatherers
Finland's largest and best-known rock painting site on a sheer granite cliff above Lake Yövesi, part of Lake Saimaa.
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Megalith
Late Iron Age to Modern (500–1800 CE) · Ejagham (Cross River)
Ikom Monoliths (Akwanshi, Ataal) are 300 basalt monoliths 0.3–1.8 m high carved 500–1800 CE by Ejagham peoples in Cross River forest, stylized janus faces, spiral navels and diadems around…
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Solutrean–Magdalenian ~18–14 ka BP · Solutrean/Magdalenian Cantabrian
Great Ceiling of polychrome bison — the Paleolithic Sistine Chapel at Santillana del Mar.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Neolithic Longshan to Zhou (3000 BCE – 770 BCE) · Yangshao–Longshan farmer to Zhou frontier pastoral
Qinling foothill gorge with 30+ ibex and rayed humans of Longshan era.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Magdalenian ~17–14 ka BP · Magdalenian
Vézère polychrome gallery with 230 Magdalenian figures, last original painted cave open to public.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Solutrean to Magdalenian ~18–11 ka BP · Magdalenian Cantabrian
Ribadesella polychrome Magdalenian cave sealed until 1968 with 14 ka harpoon culture art.
🇯🇵 Japan · Rock art
Late Jomon to Epi-Jomon / Zoku-Jomon (c.300 BCE–350 CE, figures ~1600 BP) · Zoku-Jomon
Zoku-Jomon rock art cave (800 engravings, ~1600 BP) — winged figures pecked into soft Miocene tuff on Maruyama Hill.
🇵🇪 Peru · Megalith
Inca Late Horizon ca.1470 CE · Inca
2.28-m granite boulder with 203 miniature carvings, ca.1470 Inca hydraulic model.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Neolithic Pastoral ~8000–2000 BP · Pastoral Neolithic Saharan
Fezzan escarpment's elephant and giraffe engravings marking Holocene Sahara greening.
🇺🇸 United States · Rock art
Archaic to Protohistoric (7000 BP–1700 CE) · Paleoindian through Dakota
Midwest's largest petroglyph site: 4000 carvings 7000 BP–1700 CE on quartzite outcrop tracing 7000 years.
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Rock art
MSA to Iron Age (50,000 BCE–1800 CE; rock art 2000 BCE–500 CE) · MSA / Kintampo-related / Iron Age (Borgawa)
Kainji shoreline and islands host Middle Stone Age to Iron Age rock shelters with geometric rock art and 2,000-year mound settlements along Niger River, inundated partially 1968 by Kainji Dam.
🇵🇹 Portugal · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (~25,000 BCE – 1000 BCE; main 20,000–10,000 BCE) · Solutrean/Magdalenian to Atlantic Iron Age
Largest open-air Paleolithic art complex known, spread over 17 km of the Côa tributary with over 1,000 engraved schist panels bearing thousands of zoomorphs.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Aurignacian, Upper Paleolithic (~37,000–33,000 BCE) · Aurignacian hunter-gatherer
Sealed Aurignacian cave above the Ardèche gorge containing the earliest known figurative art, with over 430 animal representations including woolly rhinoceros, cave lions, panthers and megaloceros…
🇺🇸 United States · Rock art
Archaic to present (1000 BCE–present) · Sioux (Dakota/Lakota/Nakota), Oneota predecessors
2,000-year sacred catlinite quarries: 3000 pits in Sioux quartzite cliff plus thunderbird petroglyphs.
🇲🇱 Mali · Necropolis
Medieval Trans-Saharan (9th–15th c. CE) · Sanhaja Berber / Tuareg / Andalusian-linked
Bazina ridge south of Saharan caravan city with Andalusian lustre shards.
🇳🇴 Norway · Rock art
Late Stone Age to Early Iron Age (~7000 BCE – 0 CE) · Finnmark hunter-gatherer/fisher to early Sami ancestors
Northern Europe's largest petroglyph field preserves some 6,000 carved figures along the Alta Fjord raised shorelines, tracking post-glacial rebound chronology.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Gravettian to Magdalenian ~20–11 ka BP · Upper Paleolithic Iberian
2 km open-air schist engravings paired with Côa Valley, 443 Paleolithic pecked figures.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Early Holocene to Garamantian (~12,000 BCE – 100 CE) · Saharan hunter-gatherer to Pastoral Neolithic (Kel Essuf, Round Head, Pastoral)
150-km sandstone plateau on the Algerian border preserves thousands of paintings and engravings in styles paralleling nearby Tassili n'Ajjer: giant Kel Essuf headless figures, Round Head masked…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Rock art
Late Bronze Age, Hittite Empire (~1300–1180 BCE; refurbished under Tudhaliya IV) · Hittite (Hatti–Hurrian)
Two natural limestone chambers behind Hattusa where 90 reliefs carved into living rock depict the Hurrian–Hittite pantheon procession: Chamber A shows 12 underworld gods, sword-god Nergal and the…
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Gravettian ~28–25 ka BP · Gravettian
Sealed 1.6 km Gravettian engraved gallery with 4 m bison and bear nests intact since 25 ka.
