Prehistoric Rock Art is the art of the first Europeans. It appeared in Europe 42,000 years ago and lasted until historical times in some regions. Since the scientific recognition of Altamira Cave in 1902, Prehistoric Art has been an important cultural and tourist resource for Europe, as the first cultural, social and symbolic expression of humankind.

Heritage

The importance of rock art sites in the member states of the Council of Europe has been recognised by UNESCO. Since 1976, several areas and sites have been included on the World Heritage List. Currently, eleven rock art areas/sites have this recognition in the 46 member states of the Council of Europe. However, not all periods and cultures of European prehistory produced art in the same way across the continent. Thus, compared to the flourishing of early art in southern France and the Iberian Peninsula during the Upper Palaeolithic, and the importance of rock art in the Neolithic and the beginning of the Metal Age in the Mediterranean areas of the Iberian Peninsula, northern Italy and the Caucasus, this phenomenon is conspicuous by its absence in large areas of the continent during these same periods, especially in central Europe. Similarly, the art associated with megalithic monuments or Metal Age cultures did not develop uniformly in all regions, and is much more important in certain Atlantic areas (such as Scandinavia, Finland, the British Isles, Galicia and Portugal) than in the Mediterranean basin and central Europe, where there are no major manifestations of this art form.

Travelling today

More than 170 rock art sites are open to the public in the countries represented in PRAT-CARP Cultural Route (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Finland, France, Georgia, Italy, Portugal and Spain). Many are small sites, but there are locations with significant tourism infrastructures where it is possible to visit large archaeological sites. In addition, the traveller can also see some excellent facsimiles of caves and rock shelters, which make it easy to display this art without endangering the original sites, many of which can only receive a few visitors per day or no visits at all. Each year, nearly 3.7 million visitors come to the places included in PRAT-CARP Cultural Route, where the first inhabitants of Europe produced their transcendental rock art, an art full of symbolism motivated by religious belief and full of references to nature.