The Cultural Route "Prehistoric Rock Art Trails" offers 112 fantastic Archaeological and Rock Art sites with great scientific, cultural, artist and archaeological interest. All these sites are open to be discovered and enjoyed by the European and World society.
Currently, nearly two million visitors come each year to theses places where the first inhabitants of Europe produced their transcendental rock art, an art full of symbolism motivated by religious belief and references to Nature, forming the first Cultural Landscapes of Europe.
The vast majority of these places are of great symbolic value and are part of the European Cultural Heritage, but they are also elements that support the local identity. This symbolic value has been recognized in the World Heritage List of UNESCO. The relationship between Prehistoric Rock Art and Landscape is used to produce a thematic tourism offer that integrates culture and nature, landscape and cultural Heritage. This contributes to a sustainable development of the rural communities that are located at all the sites that make up the cultural route.
More than 150 Rock Art sites are open to the public in Europe, focusing on countries like Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, and in particular France and Spain. Many are small sites (a cave, a rock shelter, a small museum...), but there are locations with significant tourism infrastructures where it is possible to see large archaeological sites.
The cultural and symbolic attractions of the first European prehistorical art has been recognized by UNESCO, as World Heritage with the inclusion of 9 sites to the list, such as the shelters of The River Vero Cultural Park that belongs to the rock shelters with Levantine Art of the Mediterranean Coast (Spain).
