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CategoriesRock art sites
Paintings and engravings from the deepest human past.
🇺🇸 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.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Magdalenian ~17–14 ka BP · Magdalenian
Vézère polychrome gallery with 230 Magdalenian figures, last original painted cave open to public.
🇮🇳 India · Rock shelter
Mesolithic (7000 BCE) · Mesolithic
Bhimbetka Satellite Shelter — IIB-33 in Madhya Pradesh, Bhimbetka outlier, India is a Mesolithic (7000 BCE) rock shelter attributed to Mesolithic culture.
🇪🇸 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.
🇵🇪 Peru · Megalith
Inca Late Horizon ca.1470 CE · Inca
2.28-m granite boulder with 203 miniature carvings, ca.1470 Inca hydraulic model.
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Rock art
Nok to Berom (1500 BCE–present) · Nok / Proto-Berom
Jos Plateau rock-gong complex with 8 granite gongs and Nok scatter.
🇳🇬 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.
🇳🇴 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.
🇸🇪 Sweden · Rock art
Neolithic–Bronze Age (4000–1000 BCE) · Hunter-gatherer rock art tradition
Vitlycke Rock Carvings is a rock art site in Västra Götaland, Sweden featuring carvings and paintings on exposed bedrock dating from the Neolithic to Bronze Age (c.4000–1000 BCE).
🇹🇭 Thailand · Rock art
Chalcolithic (4500–3300 BCE) · Chalcolithic
Ard Bury Rock Shelter in Buriram Province, Thailand is a Chalcolithic (4500–3300 BCE) rock art attributed to Chalcolithic culture.
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Middle Horizon to Late Intermediate ~900–1450 CE · Wari to Collagua / Inca fringe
5,000-boulder petroglyph desert - world's densest - Wari-Collagua dancers over 10 km².
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Magdalenian ~13 ka BP · Magdalenian
8 km mammoth gallery with 158 manganese woolly-mammoth figures and children's finger fluting.
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Bronze Age to Turkic (~2000 BCE – 800 CE) · Andronovo, Saka, Turkic nomadic
Elevated 3,200-m boulder field on the Ferghana ridge preserving perhaps 107,000 images on 10,000 varnished basalt boulders, making it among the most numerous rock-art locales on earth.
🇲🇳 Mongolia · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Mesolithic (19,000–8000 BCE) · Malta-Buret related early Holocene hunter
Sun-facing lower gallery with 15 ka ibex/ostrich ochre and pecked figures 220 m below main cave.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian to Magdalenian (c.40,000–10,000 BCE) · Magdalenian and earlier Paleolithic
Lombrives – Europe's largest single cave by volume (39 km gallery, 2.5 km long chamber) in Ariège Pyrenees, extending Niaux system.
🇳🇦 Namibia · Rock art
Late Stone Age to early pastoral (6000 BCE – 1000 CE) · San hunter-gatherer (Ju/'hoansi ancestors)
Namibia's sole UNESCO World Heritage site besides Brandberg, Twyfelfontein holds over 2,500 engravings pecked into a 600-m sandstone outcrop of Etjo formation.
🇹🇿 Tanzania · Rock art
Middle Stone Age / Later Stone Age · Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers
60 m deep sequence from Acheulean bifaces to 30 ka ostrich-eggshell beads and 19 ka geometric microliths bridging Middle Stone Age–Neolithic. Rock paintings overlie MSA horizons.
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Saka to Qarakhanid · Saka, Wusun, Qarakhanid
Lake-margin boulder bar at the tarn below Saimaluu-Tash West cirque, a 400-m shoreline shelf with 180 panels on glacially-rafted quartzite.
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Late Neolithic (4000–3000 BCE) · Bronze Age
Ollantaytambo Fountain Terrace West in Cusco, Peru is a Late Neolithic (4000–3000 BCE) rock art attributed to Bronze Age culture.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Hillfort
Iron Age to Early Medieval · Dal Riata Scots
Dunadd Fort — Kilmartin Glen in Argyll, Scotland, United Kingdom is a Iron Age to Early Medieval hillfort attributed to Dal Riata Scots.
🇵🇰 Pakistan · Rock art
Mauryan (260 BCE) Ashoka edicts · Mauryan (Ashoka)
Shahbaz Garhi — Ashokan Rock Edict Outlier Quarry in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan is a Mauryan (260 BCE) Ashoka edicts rock_art attributed to Mauryan (Ashoka).
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Rock art
Bronze Age to Turkic (1400 BCE – 800 CE) · Andronovo to Saka to Turkic
Ridgetop with shaman drum and deer-headdress plus Saka kurgans.
🇺🇸 United States · Rock art
Ancestral Puebloan (1000–1400 CE) and Spanish 1700s · Ancestral Puebloan → Rio Grande Pueblo
Albuquerque mesa excavated by Sundt 1970s, 24k peck basalt trail, NPS Mesa Prieta 1000.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Rock art
Pastoral Neolithic (6000–1500 BCE) · Uweinat pastoralists (Garamantian ancestor?)
Uweinat documented by Frobenius 1933 and Menardi Noguera, 6000 BCE cattle pastoralists.
