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CategoriesRock art sites
Paintings and engravings from the deepest human past.
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Saka to Turkic Medieval · Saka, Wusun, Turkic
Western cirque shelf of Saimaluu-Tash at Ashu Pass, a glacial hanging valley 2 km west of Saimaluu-Tash I main valley floor at 3420 m.
🇺🇸 United States · Rock art
Pre-Clovis (Western Stemmed) · Paisley (Western Stemmed) / Pre-Clovis
14,500-year coprolite caves — oldest human DNA in Americas (14,300 BP) with Western Stemmed points, Oregon.
🇩🇿 Algeria · Rock art
Early Holocene to Camel Period · Pastoral / Kel Essuf / Tuareg
Arch sanctuary Tin Merzouga bridging Acacus pastoral art to Tassili chariots.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Tell
Ubaid to Early Dynastic I (c.5000–2900 BCE; mural is Late Uruk–Jemdet Nasr c.3200 BCE) · Ubaid → Uruk → Jemdet Nasr → Early Dynastic
Painted Temple mound with 3200 BCE leopard mural — first mural art in Mesopotamia.
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Pallava–Pandya Early Medieval · Digambara Jain
Pallava–Pandya Jain cave complex (7th–9th c. CE) on Sittanavasal hillock, famed for Arivar Koil — earliest Tamil rock-cut Jain shrine with natural-cavern-pillared mandapa and Brahmi-Tamil inscription.
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Initial Period to Late Horizon ~1500 BCE–1532 CE · Andean (Chavín-influenced to Inca)
450 boulder petroglyph field above Chillón River with 3,500-year rayed-head tradition.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian ~14–13 ka BP · Magdalenian hunter-gatherer
Magdalenian Salon Noir cave with 14 ka charcoal bison and ibex deep in the Ariège Pyrenees.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Temple complex
Iron Age IIB (single-period) · Kingdom of Israel/Judah (Israelite)
Desert Israelite fortress (c.800 BCE) with 'YHWH and his Asherah' inscriptions and Bes frescoes.
🇦🇷 Argentina · Rock art
Early Holocene to late Patagonia (~9300 BCE – 700 CE) · Patagonian hunter-gatherer (Tehuelche ancestors)
Canyon sandstone cave whose walls retain over 800 negative hand stencils made by spraying pigment through bone pipes around hands, interspersed with guanaco hunts, bola weapons and geometric discs.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Middle Stone Age to Neolithic (200,000–6,000 BP) · Homo sapiens MS A/MSA/LSA; Oranian Dabban Capsian
Haua Fteah is a 50-m-wide by 20-m-high karst cave at foot of Jebel Akhdar escarpment, Cyrenaica's deep 14-m stratified sequence 200,000–10,000 BP, spanning Middle Stone Age Upper Palaeolithic…
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Pleistocene to Early Holocene · Nordeste Tradition (early Amerind)
Capivara arch shelter heart of 1,150-painting Nordeste tradition with pre-Clovis debate hearths.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Rock art
Late Bronze to Dzungar · Wusun, Turkic, Mongol-Oirat, Tibetan Buddhist
Upper limestone cliff 35 m above the Ili left bank at Tamgaly-Tas (Kapchagai), 800 m upstream from the famous 17th-century Tibetan Buddhist panels.
🇦🇺 Australia · Rock art
Late Pleistocene to present (~4000 BCE – contemporary) · Bininj/Mungguy (Aboriginal Australian)
Five main sandstone galleries on the Nadab floodplain edge of the Arnhem escarpment display the classic X-ray style: translucent kangaroo, emu, long-necked turtles and thylacine (Tasmanian tiger)…
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Gravettian to Solutrean ~29–20 ka BP · Gravettian hunter-gatherer
Quercy cave with Spotted Horses and 307 hand stencils, 25 ka Gravettian masterpiece.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock art
Later Stone Age to Colonial ~8000 BP–19th c. · San ( ancestral Bushman) and Khoe
Kimberley andesite engravings with 1,500 eland-rhino figures and living San custodianship.
🇹🇿 Tanzania · Rock art
Late Stone Age to recent (~3000 BCE – 19th century CE; most 1500 BCE onward) · Sandawe hunter-gatherer to Bantu pastoralist, later Warangi
Over 150 shelters scattered across the Kondoa escarpment display stratified painting traditions: early naturalistic eland and human figures with elongated heads (hunter-gatherer), later white…
🇦🇺 Australia · Rock art
Pleistocene to Historic ~50 ka–present · Australian Aboriginal (Ngarluma, Yindjibarndi, Yaburara)
Million-engraving petroglyph province on Pilbara gabbro archipelago, 50 kyr continuous record.
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to early Holocene (~25,000 BCE – 2000 BCE disputed; art ~9000 BCE onward) · Paleoindian / early Nordeste tradition; Pedra Furada phase
Semiarid caatinga plateau with over 400 painted shelters bearing perhaps 30,000 figures, among the densest and most narrative rock-art landscapes in the Americas.
🇮🇷 Iran · Rock art
Mesolithic to Bronze Age (c.8000–2000 BCE) · Zagros rock-art tradition (pre-pottery to Bronze)
Lorestan painted cave 40 m galleries (150+ black/red paintings, hunters/ibex, c.8–2 ka) in Kuhdasht.
🇮🇳 India · Rock art
Neolithic to Iron Age (~6000 BCE – 1000 BCE; inscriptions to 1st century CE) · South Indian Neolithic to Iron Age; Sangam to Tamil-Brahmi
Natural cleft formed by a 4-m boulder bridging a rift in Ambukuthimala hill reveals Old Kannada petroglyphs: over 400 engravings of ibex-like 'Indus-style' jar, stickmen, Sun Plan wheels and a…
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic (Solutrean/Magdalenian, ~17,000–15,000 BCE) · Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherer (Magdalenian)
Sealed Upper Paleolithic cave on the Vézère renowned as the 'Sistine Chapel of Prehistory' for about 600 parietal paintings and nearly 1,500 engravings executed with astonishing naturalism.
🇸🇩 Sudan · Archaeological wonder
Early Holocene to Late Antiquity (9500 BCE–500 CE) · Holocene Saharan pastoral / Nubian
1000-km Yellow Nile former tributary with 400 Holocene pastoral scatters 9500–2000 BCE.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Rock art
Early to Mid Holocene (6000–3000 BCE) · Saharan pastoral Neolithic (Gilf Kebir)
Wadi Sora (Wadi Sura) Cave of Swimmers (Cave II) in Gilf Kebir is Saharan pastoral rock art 6000–3000 BCE, famous for 1933 Almasy discovery of 'swimming' floating figures (actually swimming in wadi…
🇺🇦 Ukraine · Rock art
Mesolithic to Bronze Age (8000 BCE – 1500 BCE) · Pontic Steppe hunter-gatherer to Yamna/Catacomb
West gully offshoots of Azov Stone Graves with bull and horse pecked panels.
