Cave art, known as rock art, are prehistoric and ancient artistic expressions (drawings, paintings, engravings) made on rock, which represent animals, human figures and symbols, using mineral pigments and charcoal, and which serve as a valuable source of information about the life, beliefs and culture of ancient communities, being famous sites such as Lascaux (France) and Altamira (Spain).

Main features

Techniques: They include pictographs (paints with pigments such as ocher and manganese, and binders such as animal fat) and petroglyphs (engravings or carvings in the rock).

Themes: Mainly animals (bison, deer, horses), hunting scenes, human figures, hands and abstract symbols.

Purpose: It is believed that they had magical functions (sympathetic magic to ensure hunting), religious (shamanic rites), communicative (informing about resources) or simply aesthetic functions.

Rock art is a direct window into the minds and daily lives of our ancestors, revealing aspects of their fauna, tools, social organization and worldview before writing.