List of Stone Age art

The oldest undisputed figurative art appears with the Aurignacian, about 40,000 years ago, which is associated with the earliest presence of Cro-Magnon artists in Europe. Figurines with date estimates of 40,000 years are the so-called Lion-man and Venus of Hohle Fels, both found in the Southern Germany caves of the Swabian Jura.

The artist depicts a group of wild or domesticated horses (from Chauvet Cave, France, ca. 31,000 years old)

Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain

• Löwenmensch, or Lion Man, dated between 40,000 and 35,000 years old, an ivory sculpture that is both the oldest known animal-shaped sculpture in the world and,[1] the oldest known uncontested example of figurative art. The sculpture is now housed in the Ulm Museum in Ulm, Germany.
• Adorant from the Geißenklösterle cave, between 35,000 and 40,000 years old.
• The Venus of Hohle Fels is an Upper Paleolithic Venus figurine made of mammoth ivory that was located near Schelklingen, Germany. It is dated to between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago,[2] belonging to the early Aurignacian. This female figure is the oldest undisputed example of a depiction of a human being yet discovered. In terms of figurative art only the lion-headed, zoomorphic Löwenmensch figurine is older. The Venus figurine is housed at the Museum in Blaubeuren (Urgeschichtliches Museum Blaubeuren).

• Cave art
  • La Pasiega cave (Spain) – an art gallery created in prehistoric times, the exhibition of artwork here runs for at least 120 meters. Contains ladder-shaped abstract drawings controversially dated to older than 64,800 years (Mousterian).
  • Altamira cave (Spain) – in 1879 the first prehistoric paintings and drawings were discovered in this cave, which soon became famous for their depth of color and depictions of animals, hands, and abstract shapes.
  • Chauvet Cave (France) – some of the earliest cave paintings known, and considered among the most important prehistoric art sites.
  • Coliboaia cave (Romania) contains the oldest known cave paintings of Central Europe, radiocarbon dated to 32,000 and 35,000 BP
  • El Castillo cave, one of the Monte Castillo caves (Spain) – contains decorations in red ochre paint which has been blown onto the walls in the forms of hand stencils as long as 37,000 years ago, and painted dots. One faint red dot has been dated to 40,800 years ago, making it the oldest dated cave decoration in the world.[3][4] It is 5,000-10,000 years older than caves so-far found in France.[5][6]
  • Lascaux caves (France) – contains some of the best known artworks of early painters, many of those portraying large animals.
  • Bhimbetka rock shelters (India) – the shelters, decorated with art from 30,000 years ago, contain the oldest evidence of artists exhibiting their work on the Indian sub-continent.

The Gravettian spans the Last Glacial Maximum, ca. 33–21 kya. The Solutrean (c. 22–17 kya) may or may not be included as the final phase of the Gravettian.

• Numerous Venus figurines [7] from the Gravettian have been found including: Venus of Dolní Věstonice, Venus of Brassempouy, Venus of Laussel, Venus of Lespugue, Venus of Moravany, Venus of Galgenberg, Venus of Petřkovice, Venus of Savignano, Venus of Willendorf
• Cosquer Cave (France) – hand stencils from 27,000 years ago, and 19,000-year-old animal drawings that portray bison, ibex, horses, seals and what may be auks and jellyfish, showcase this gallery.
• Caves of Gargas, France, features numerous negative hand stencils, some with one or more fingers absent.

A 16,000-year-old masterwork from the Lascaux cave in France

Magdalenian Horse, c. 15,000 BCE, Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, France

• Cave art
  • Chufin cave (Spain) – small cave with engravings, stick figures, and artwork schematically portraying red deer, goats and cattle.
  • Côa Valley (Portugal) – artists engraved thousands of drawings of horses and other animal, human and abstract figures in open-air artwork completed 22,000 to 10,000 years ago.
  • Font-de-Gaume in south-west France contains over 200 polychrome paintings and engravings from artists who worked over 17,000 years ago. The cave's most famous painting is a frieze of five bison, although renditions of many other animals, including wolves, are featured.
  • Kapova cave in southern Ural Mountains (Russia) – presently 173 monochromatic ochre rock paintings and charcoal drawings or their traces are documented, presenting Pleistocene animals and abstract geometric motives. They are about 18,000 – 16,000 years old, from Late Solutrean to Middle Magdalenian.
  • La Marche (France) – due to the style the legitimacy of the cave paintings here are in dispute.
  • Roc-aux-Sorciers (France) – a rock shelter famous for its 14,000-year-old relief wall carvings.
• Perforated baton with low relief horse, from Abri de la Madeleine, an overhanging cliff situated near Tursac in France, and is stored in the British Museum.
• 15 kya Bison Licking Insect Bite, an approximately 15,000-year-old carved and engraved fragment of a spear-thrower made of reindeer antler, the piece depicts a member of the now extinct Bison species steppe wisent. The artist carved the bison's head turned to its right and licking itself as if bitten by an insect.[8] It's exhibited in the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, not far from where it was found.
• Montastruc decorated stone, an approximately 13,000 year old scratched or engraved human figure on a piece of limestone – which appears to be female –used as a lamp. From Courbet Cave, France, it now resides in the British Museum.
• 13 kya Swimming Reindeer, a sculpture of two swimming reindeer ornately carved from the tusk of a mammoth. The sculpture is now in the British Museum.
• Robin Hood Cave Horse (previously known as the Ochre Horse). This fragment of rib that the artist engraved with a horse's head was discovered in the Robin Hood Cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, England. It is the only animal-related Upper Paleolithic portable artwork ever found in Britain.[9][10] Robin Hood Cave Horse is now housed in the British Museum.
• Venus figurines of Gönnersdorf
• Venus figurines of Mal'ta, Venus of Buret'
• Pinhole Cave Man, or Pin Hole Cave Man, has become the common name for an engraving of a human figure on a woolly rhinoceros rib bone. The piece was found in Pin Hole Cave, Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, England, and is now in the British Museum.

Swimming Reindeer, a 13,000-year-old mammoth-tusk sculpture now residing in the British Museum, depicts a female on the right and a male on the left.

In this Bradshaw rock painting from Australia the artist portrays tasseled costumed figures in various poses or actions.

Australia and parts of Southeast Asia remained in the Paleolithic stage until European contact. The oldest firmly dated rock-art painting in Australia is a charcoal drawing on a rock fragment found during the excavation of the Nawarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in south western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Dated at 28,000 years, it is one of the oldest known pieces of rock art on Earth with a confirmed date.

• Bradshaw rock paintings (Australia) – Aboriginal artists painted well over a million paintings in this site in the Kimberley, many of human figures ornamented with accessories such as bags, tassels and headdresses.[11] These artworks are well over 20,000 years old.
• Gabarnmung (Australia) – this rock-art site in the Northern Territory features the oldest artwork in Australia at over 28,000 years. Aboriginal artists painted fish, crocodiles, people, and spiritual figures, mostly on the site's ceilings.[12][13] The site also includes panels of recent paintings, radiocarbon dated to between AD 1433–1631 and AD 1658–1952 (calibrated 95% CI), consistent with the reports that the cave was still visited within living memory.[14]
• Sydney rock engravings (Australia) – Contains around 1,500 pieces of Aboriginal rock art, which date from 5,000 to 7,000 years old.[15]