Prehistoric and Rock Art

Painted, engraved and stencilled imagery made directly on rock surfaces, in caves and in the open, by prehistoric and preliterate peoples worldwide, from the Upper Paleolithic through later hunter-gatherer and pastoralist traditions before or outside the reach of written record. Belongs here: cave and rock-shelter paintings such as the Franco-Cantabrian sites (Chauvet Cave, Lascaux) and the Trois-Freres cave's Sorcerer figure, the Sulawesi and Borneo karst cave art of the Maros-Pangkep region including Coliboaia Cave's Romanian counterpart, and comparable Paleolithic, Mesolithic and later prehistoric rock art from Africa, Australia and the Americas. Does not belong here: the built architecture of any period, which stays under the Architectural Arts subcategories such as Ancient and Classical Monuments; a painting with a devotional, biblical, mythological or documented historical narrative from a literate civilization, which stays under History, Religious and Mythological Paintings (the Ajanta Cave Paintings of ancient Buddhist India are a painted narrative cycle in a literate tradition and correctly stay there, distinct from the pre-literate parietal art gathered here); and any named artistic movement or period-style entity of type movement, such as the existing empty Prehistoric and Ancient Art movement subcategory, which classifies broader stylistic movements rather than individual works.