Paleolithic art

Humans make art. We do this for many reasons and with whatever technologies are available to us. But what can we really know about their creators and what the images originally meant?

- c. 10,000 B.C.E.

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Bhimbetka cave paintings

Paintings in the rock shelters in Bhimbetka are the oldest art of South Asia.

Bannerstones, North America

Between 6000 and 1000 B.C.E., thousands of nomadic Native Americans travelled and lived along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, making enigmatic, carefully carved stones known today as bannerstones.

Clovis culture, North America

The first clear evidence of human activity in North America are spearheads used to hunt large game.

Carvings and paintings, Kakadu

The cave paintings, rock carvings and archaeological sites record the skills and way of life of the region’s inhabitants, from the hunter-gatherers of prehistoric times to the Aboriginal people still living there.

Rock art on the Iberian coast

The late prehistoric rock-art sites of the Mediterranean seaboard of the Iberian peninsula form an exceptionally large group.

Rock drawings in Valcamonica

Valcamonica, situated in the Lombardy plain, has one of the world's greatest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs

Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain (UNESCO/NHK)

Seventeen decorated caves of the Paleolithic age were inscribed as an extension to the Altamira Cave

Figurative cave art in Borneo

These enigmatic artworks are among the world’s oldest examples of figurative depiction.

Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi, Indonesia

A team of Griffith University archaeologists has shared in the discovery of what may be the world’s oldest known cave painting, dating back to at least 45,500 years ago.