HIGHEST ALTITUDE PETROGLYPHS IN EUROPE:

Stelvio National Park, Lombardy, Italy. Image from  arkeonews.net.

I have written a few previous columns on high altitude rock art (see ‘highest elevation’ in the cloud index at bottom). Now we have learned of the discovery of petroglyphs in Lombardy, Italy that are acclaimed as the highest in Europe.

Spiral and anthropomorph with possible quadruped. Image from archaeology.org.

Image from  arkeonews.net.

“The discovery of a series of petroglyphs over 3,000 meters high in the Valtellina Orobie mountain range in Lombardy has made them the highest petroglyphs found in Europe and provided new clues to human presence in mountainous areas since ancient times. Tommaso Malinverno, a Como hiker, informed the Soprintendenza in the summer of 2017 that he had noticed odd carvings on a rock at the base of the Pizzo Tresero glacier. After receiving this report, scientists and archaeologists conducted thorough research and determined that the petroglyphs dated to between 3,600 and 3,200 years ago (1600 -1200 BCE), during the Middle Bronze Age.” (arkeonews 2025) Now 3,000 meters is 9,842 feet so this is not up in rarified air. It does, however, prove that some people of the Middle Bronze Age traveled in the high mountains for some reason, shades of Otzi. 

Image from Regione Lombardia. 

The location of the newly found rock art is not all that isolated archeologically. “The petroglyphs are located near the Gavia Pass, a region already renowned for its rich archaeological heritage. The site connects with other significant tock art locations in Lombardy, including Val Camonica, recognized as Italy’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Valtellina region, home to the famed Rupe Magna in Grosio and the stele statues of Teglio.” (Radley 2024)

Quadruped. Image from Regione Lombardia. 

As you will see below they have suffered damage from a source that we usually do not consider to be a threat to rock art – glacial activity. This threat would seem to be reducing, however, given climate change and global warming. What new threats will show up now? “Stefano Rossi, and archaeologist from the Superintendence, remarked, ‘The Tresero petroglyphs are an exceptional research opportunity. They raise crucial questions about the complex relationship between humans and mountains over millennia. High-altitude exploration is often associated with modern mountaineering, but these engravings demonstrate long-term human presence starting in prehistory.’ However, glacial activity over thousands of years has eroded many of the carvings, leaving striations on the rocks and potentially obliterating many portions of a once larger rock art complex.” (Radley 2024) The fact that their rock face shows glacial erosion means that the petroglyphs would have been obscured by ice for part of their history. The news stories do not state how far from glacial ice they are now but they have obviously been covered at some point suggesting climatic changes over history.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Arkeonews, 2025, The Highest Prehistoric Petroglyphs in Europe Discovered at 3000 Meters in the Italian Alps, https://arkeonews.net. Accessed online 5 January 2025.

Radley, Dario, 2024, Europe’s highest petroglyphs unearthed in Lombardy’s mountains, 21 November 2024, https://archaeologymag.com. Accessed online 21 November 2024.

HIGH ALTITUDE ROCK ART - TIBET YET AGAIN:

Chusang hand-and-footprint

site, Tibet, photo Wall Street

Journal, Public Domain.

On August 13, 2016, I wrote in this column "Highest Altitude Rock Art Revisited - Yet Again" about a rock art site in Tibet at approx. 15,600 feet in altitude above sea level. I have not yet been able to top that, but we now have heard of a Tibetan site with foot-and-hand-prints at 14,000 feet in altitude, a good second.

"human handprint preserved in

the soft limestone at the 14,000-

foot-high site of Chusang in central

Tibet was left there more than

7,000 years ago." (Coates 2017:42) 

Photo: Wall Street Journal,
Public Domain.

Published in the September/October 2017 issue of Archaeology magazine (volume 70, number 5) pages 38-43, by Karen Coates, The Heights We Go To, discussed a site in Tibet with both foot and hand prints at that altitude. It seems remarkable that people were there as long ago as 7,000 years, not that they could not have gone there back then, but I wonder why they would?

Coates was reporting on research by Mark Aldenderfer of the University of California, Merced. "Aldederfer  and several of his colleagues created a stir in early 2017 when they announced that they had evidence of preagricultural hunter-gatherers living in a permanent settlement system on the central Tibetan Plateau at least 7,400 years ago - thousands of years earlier than researchers had previously thought. That research centers on a site called Chusang, about 215 miles from Lhasa, at an elevation of 14,000 feet. There, 19 human hand-and footprints are embedded in a unique formation of travertine limestone created in the remains of ancient hot springs. No artifacts were found nearby, just the markings of up to six individuals who were at that site millennia ago." (Coates 2017:41)

The Tibetan examples of extreme altitude rock art testify to something very basic in humanity that can drive or inspire people to the most impressive results. You can read the whole article in the September/October issue of Archaeology magazine listed in REFERENCES below.

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet after a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the originals at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Coates, Karen,

2015 The Heights We Go To, Archaeology Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 5, September/October 2017, pages 38-43.

Faris, Peter

2016 Highest Altitude Rock Art Revisited - Yet Again, http://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Tibet, August 13, 2016.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/humans-occupied-tibetan-plateau-thousands-years-earlier-than-previously-thought-021160

https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2017/01/06/yeti-prints-suggest-humans-settled-in-tibet-more-than-7000-years-ago/

HIGHEST ALTITUDE ROCK ART REVISITED - YET AGAIN:

Fig. 28.11, Sunburst with nine points,

Sinmo Khadang, Tibet. Photograph

from John Vincent Bellezza. 

In our quest to locate the rock art at the highest elevation, Peter Jessen has again come through with another candidate, this time from Tibet. Pictographs at the site of Sinmo Khadang were found at 4,720 to 4,740 meters which is about 15,576 to 15,642 feet above sea level (that is high altitude in anybody's book).

Fig. 28.2. Interior of Sinmo

Khadang, Tibet. Photograph

from John Vincent Bellezza.

Jessen forwarded to me an article by John Vincent Bellezza from 2015 (please see references below) detailing a number of rock art sites in Tibet, and conveniently each site listed has its elevation above sea level given. The highest elevation listed for a site in this article is that of Sinmo Khadang (4,720 to 4,740 meters/15,576 to 15,624 feet above sea level).

Fig. 28.1. View from the south mouth

of Sinmo Khadang overlooking the

Spiti River valley, Tibet. Photograph

from John Vincent Bellezza. 

The rock art sites of Spiti.

Map by Brian Sebastian and

John Vincent Bellezza.

Sinmo Khadang is an 80 meter long large cave, situated just below a summit dividing the main Spiti river valley from the tributary valley of Kibbar. The name Sinmo Khadang translates as "Gaping Mouth of the Cannibalistic Fiend." Spiti is located in the Western fringe of the Tibetan Plateau (see the map above).(Bellezza 2015)

Fig. 28.8. Swastika, crescent moon,

and bell-shaped form. The swastika

and moon are one composition, the

bell-shaped form was painted

separately. Photograph from

                     John Vincent Bellezza.

Fig. 28.12. Swastika and anthropomorphs.

Sinmo Khadang, Tibet. Photograph from

John Vincent Bellezza.

"The repertoire of rock art at Sinmo Khadang is comparable with the other pictographic sites of Spiti. In addition to trees, suns, moons, swastikas and anthropomorphs, there are two paintings of ibexes and a raptor pictograph in the cave. The pictographs of Sinmo Khadang were made by many different people. They primarily date to the Protohistoric period but some may possibly have been made subsequently in the Early Historic period. There is also a more recent red ochre pictograph consisting of a clockwise swastika with four dots painted inside its arms, as well as an obscured inscription in the Uchen script." (Bellezza 2015)

Fig. 28.14. Tree and swastika on

east wall of Sinmo Khadang, Tibet.

Photograph from John Vincent Bellezza.

Uchen is an upright, block style of the Tibetan alphabet. The name means "with a head" and it is the style of writing used for printing and formal manuscripts. Uchen is used to write both the Tibetan language and Dzongkha, the official language of Bhutan. (Wikipedia)

Fig. 28.10. West wall of Sinmo Khadang,

Tibet. A large sunburst in middle, above

it a pair of anthropomorphs flanked by

swastikas forming a single composition.

Photograph from John Vincent Bellezza.

It is hard to imagine any rock art at sites higher than this, but people certainly at higher elevations in Tibet, and it is likely that there may still be rock art sites that have not been recorded. It is going to be hard to beat 15,642 feet but let's all keep looking, and let me know of your candidate for Highest Elevation Rock Art.

NOTE: For further information about rock art of Tibet please refer to Tibet Archaeology and All Things Tibetan, www.tibetarchaeology.com (see below).

REFERENCE:

Bellezza, John Vincent

2015   Flight of the Khyung (Part 3), in Tibet Archaeology and All Things Tibetan, www.tibetarchaeology.com/november-2015/

Wikipedia

HIGHEST ELEVATION ROCK ART REVISITED - NEPAL:

Fig. 4.1 and 4.2, p. 11,

Kak Nyingba, Nepal, Dr.

Perdita Pohle, 2003.

On June 18, 2016, I posted a column titled The Low-Down On Highest Altitude Rock Art Claims. In this I reported on an article titles Highest-Altitude Prehistoric Rock Art Revealed, written by Stephanie Pappas and published online by LiveScience. In her article Pappas outlined claims that a painted rock shelter named Abri Faravel in the southern French Alps has the highest elevation rock art discovered so far. The paintings of Abri Faravel were discovered in 2010 and are at an elevation of 2,133 meters (approximately 7,000 feet).

Fig. 5.1 and 5.2, p. 12,

Kak Nyingba, Nepal, Dr.

Perdita Pohle, 2003.

I then presented two pictograph sites in Colorado that I believe are from higher elevation than 7,000 feet, and I ended with the invitation for readers to inform me of sites that they know of that are at higher elevations. Then, on 19 June, 2016, Peter Jessen forwarded an article to me about a petroglyph site in Nepal at an elevation of about 9,000 feet. The site, Kak Nyingba, consists of petroglyphs carved onto the "flat sandstone banks abutting the Kali Gandaki river." (Pohle 2003:2)

Fig. 6.1 and 6.2, p. 13,

Kak Nyingba, Nepal, Dr.

Perdita Pohle, 2003.

At the time of the writing 1,189 petroglyphs had been identified, not counting cupules that are also found there. (Pohle 2003:2) While no precise dates are given internet references date habitation in that area to a few thousand years.

Fig. 7.1 and 7.2, p. 14,

Kak Nyingba, Nepal, Dr.

Perdita Pohle, 2003.

So, now, thanks to Peter Jessen we have moved the bar up considerably, from 7,000+ feet elevation to approximately 9,000 feet elevation. Who can give us a higher rock art site? Do you know of one? If so, send it to me at rockartblogmail@yahoo.com.

NOTE:  For complete information on the Kak Nyingba petroglyph site refer to the original 2003 article "Petroglyphs and Abandoned Sites in Mustang, A Unique Source For Research in Cultural History and Historical Geography" by Dr. Perdita Pohle below.

REFERENCES:

Pappas, Stephanie,

2016, http://www.livescience.com/54889-highest-altitude-prehistoric-rock-art-revealed.html

Pohle, Perdita, Dr.,

2003      Petroglyphs and Abandoned Sites in Mustang, A Unique Source For Research in Cultural History and Historical Geography, p. 1-14, Ancient Nepal, No. 153, June 2003, Published by His Majesty's Government Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Department of Archaeology, Kathmandu, Nepal.

THE LOW-DOWN ON HIGHEST ALTITUDE ROCK ART CLAIMS:

Pictograph at Abri Faravel,

southern France, 7,000' in elevation.

www.livescience.com

An article published online at Live Science, by Stephanie Pappas, Live Science contributor, and titled Highest-Altitude Prehistoric Rock Art Revealed, claims that pictographs found at a rock shelter in the southern French Alps named Abri Faravel, are the highest-altitude examples of rock art ever recorded. "In 2010, researchers found paintings decorating the ceiling of the rock shelter, consisting of parallel lines as well as what look like two animals facing each other. Excavations reveal signs of human activity starting in the Mesolithic (the period between about 10,000 B.C. and 5,000 B.C.) and extending all the way to the Middle Ages." (Pappas 2016) Abri Faravel is located at 2,133 meters (approximately 7,000 feet) elevation.

Pictographs at Abri Faravel,

www.livescience.com

Now I have read a number of Stephanie's articles in the past and am generally a big admirer of her writing. The blatant inaccuracy of this one, however, just cannot be passed up. I reread it for accuracy and found the statement that they are the "highest-elevation prehistoric rock paintings ever discovered." (Pappas 2016) As I looked at it again I knew that this just could not be right so I got out my topo maps and checked some sites from around Colorado that I was pretty sure would come in at over 7,000 feet above sea level in elevation.

Promontory on a ranch outside of 

Clarke, Colorado. 7,500' - 7,800' elevation.Photograph

Peter Faris, July, 1986.

Carrot man pictograph on a ranch

outside of Clarke, Colorado.

Photograph Peter Faris, July, 1986.

Cactus man pictograph on a ranch

outside of Clarke, Colorado.

Photograph Peter Faris,
July, 1986.

I found a couple of good examples from right here in Colorado. My first example is from a rock shelter north of Steamboat Springs, outside of Clarke Colorado, on a private ranch. This is a small shelter on a high promontory in the neighborhood of 7,500 to 7,800* feet in elevation from my topo maps. In this unlikely location we found a couple of red-painted figures and some undecipherable marks, which seemed to be Fremont in style (although what Fremont were doing up there is a mystery to me).

La Garita painted panel, San Luis

Valley, Colorado. 7,700' - 7,800'
elevation. Photograph Peter Faris,
May, 2006.

My second example is the painted pictograph site from La Garita in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. This wonderful site is assumed to be Ute in provenance. It is somewhere around 7,700 to 7,800* feet in elevation as best I can work out from the topo maps. 

So what about this claim that Abri Faravel contains the highest-altitude rock art ever recorded. Did the original authors provide Stephanie with inaccurate information, or was it just a misinterpretation. I will certainly give her the benefit of doubt. I suspect it was a misinterpretation of a statement sort of like "it is the highest site discovered in (southern France, or Europe, or wherever)" that just got misunderstood. But it brings up a great question. What would the highest elevation rock art site be? If you have some candidates please let me know. Where is your highest elevation rock art site?

Disclaimer:

* * I did not get my elevations from USGS topo maps, but with the Colorado Atlas and Gazetteer from DeLorme, so I can only claim that the elevations I cite above are my best estimates.

REFERENCES:

Pappas, Stephanie,
2016, http://www.livescience.com/54889-highest-altitude-prehistoric-rock-art-revealed.html