🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
El Castillo Cave
Mousterian to Magdalenian ~150–11 ka BP · Neanderthal then Aurignacian to Magdalenian
Monte Castillo reference sequence cave with 40 ka red disks and 150 kyr stratigraphy.
🇮🇹 Italy · Rock art
Valcamonica Rock Engravings – Naquane National Park
Epipalaeolithic to modern with Iron Age peak · Camunni (Rhaetic-adjacent Alpine) and predecessors
140,000 figures on 2,000 Alpine slabs—world's densest European rock art valley (UNESCO 1979 No.1 Italy).
🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock art
Drakensberg uKhahlamba Rock Art
Later Stone Age ~4000 BP–1800 CE · San (Bushman) hunter-gatherer
35,000 San paintings in 600 Drakensberg shelters - shamanic eland dance archive.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Valltorta — Cova dels Cavalls and Culture Park
Mesolithic to Chalcolithic (7000–2000 BCE) · Mesolithic Levantine hunters then Neolithic Schematic farmers
Levantine type site Cova dels Cavalls 57 deer-archer frieze 7000–3500 BCE, UNESCO 874 origin.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
La Pasiega Cave
Middle Paleolithic to Magdalenian ~64–11 ka BP · Neanderthal and later Solutrean/Magdalenian
Monte Castillo cave with 64 ka Neanderthal ladder motif and 700 parietal figures.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Albarracín Rock Art — Pinsapar and Prado del Navazo
Epipalaeolithic to Iberian (8000 BCE – 500 CE) · Epipalaeolithic hunters, Neolithic, Chalcolithic Schematic, Iberian
Aragon pine forest 22 shelters Levantine white archers and schematic bull 6 ka BCE–Iberian, UNESCO 874.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape
Bronze Age to Eastern Han (Warring States 400 BCE – Han) · Luoyue (proto-Zhuang Baiyue)
Guangxi karst cliffs 38 panels 1900 frog-shaman figures 5th c. BCE–2nd c. CE, UNESCO 1508.
🇹🇩 Chad · Rock art
Ennedi Plateau & Niola Doa Rock Art
Neolithic to Islamic (6000 BCE–16th c CE) · Saharan herders (Bovid, Horse, Camel groups)
600-km Saharan massif with Niola Doa 200-m cattle-horse frieze and 3,000 images 6th millennium–16th c.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Siega Verde 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.
🇩🇿 Algeria · Archaeological wonder
Tassili n'Ajjer
Epipaleolithic to Late Pastoral (c.8000 BCE–1000 CE; major painting phases Round Head 6000 BCE–5000 BCE, Pastoral 4500–2000 BCE) · Kel Tamasheq predecessor hunter-gatherer / Pastoral Neolithic / Garamantes
72,000 km² sandstone plateau with one of world's largest rock art concentrations: 15,000 engravings and paintings spanning 6000 BCE–first centuries CE – Bubalus, Round Head (10,000–6000 BCE,…
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Cave of El Castillo Polychrome
Upper Paleolithic (40,800 BCE Aurignacian to Magdalenian) · Aurignacian, Gravettian, Magdalenian (Homo sapiens & Neanderthal debate)
Cave of El Castillo (Monte Castillo, Puente Viesgo) – UNESCO Paleolithic Cave Art 1985: 40,800-year-old red ochre stencilled hand (U-Th oldest in Europe, possibly Neanderthal), bison, horses, cervids…
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Siega Verde Rock Engravings – Águeda River
Upper Palaeolithic (Solutrean–Magdalenian) · Solutrean–Magdalenian hunter-gatherers of western Iberia
443 Palaeolithic figures on Águeda schist—UNESCO trans-frontier extension of Côa Valley (20–10k BCE).
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia · Rock art
Jubbah Rock Art – Jebel Umm Sinman
Holocene: Neolithic to Bronze Age to Thamudic · Successive Arabian Holocene cultures (hunter-herder to caravaneer)
10,000-year petroglyph palimpsest at Jebel Umm Sinman—UNESCO rock art on a vanished lake shore.
🇮🇹 Italy · Rock art
Val Camonica Rock Art Dos Sotto Panel 44 — Southern Extension
Bronze-Iron Age (2000-500 BCE) · Camunian
Val Camonica Rock Art Dos Sotto Panel 44 — Southern Extension in Lombardy, Brescia, Italy is a Bronze-Iron Age (2000-500 BCE) rock art attributed to Camunian.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia · Rock art
Shuwaymis Rock Art – Jebel al-Manjor
Early Holocene humid to Bronze/Thamudic arid · Neolithic hunter-herders to Thamudic caravaneers
UNESCO escarpment with 300 panels—lions on leashed dogs and savanna fauna from Arabia's humid phase.
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Serra da Capivara
Paleo-Indian to Late Prehistoric (9000 BCE – 500 CE) · Nordeste / Agreste
Serra da Capivara in Piauí, Brazil is a Paleo-Indian to Late Prehistoric (9000 BCE – 500 CE) rock art attributed to Nordeste / Agreste culture.
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Pedra Furada 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.
🇦🇺 Australia · Rock art
Ubirr 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)…
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Serra da Capivara 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.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Font-de-Gaume Cave
Magdalenian ~17–14 ka BP · Magdalenian
Vézère polychrome gallery with 230 Magdalenian figures, last original painted cave open to public.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Tito Bustillo Cave
Solutrean to Magdalenian ~18–11 ka BP · Magdalenian Cantabrian
Ribadesella polychrome Magdalenian cave sealed until 1968 with 14 ka harpoon culture art.
🇳🇴 Norway · Rock art
Alta 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.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Rouffignac Cave
Magdalenian ~13 ka BP · Magdalenian
8 km mammoth gallery with 158 manganese woolly-mammoth figures and children's finger fluting.
🇯🇴 Jordan · Rock art
Wadi Rum Petroglyphs and Thamudic Inscriptions
Neolithic to Islamic (Thamudic–Nabataean–Islamic) · Neolithic pastoralists, Thamudic tribes, Nabataean caravan masters, early Arabs
Wadi Rum desert cliffs with 25,000 petroglyphs and Thamudic texts, UNESCO landscape.