The horses and bears painted on the cave walls of Chauvet, France, are looked upon with awe as the handiwork of people who lived thousands of years ago.
In the American Southwest, Kokopelli – the humpbacked fertility god of Pueblo mythology – plays his flute over many a rock face … and on many a tourist T-shirt and coffee mug.
Yet very few people know that a wealth of ancient rock art lies in their backyard, hidden underneath the tangled vines and towering trees of the Carolinas foothills and mountains. Not as elaborate, well-preserved or easily interpreted as those in France and the Southwest, there are nevertheless more than 100 sites where archaeologists think prehistoric people expressed themselves with the tools at hand – stones for chipping, clay for painting. Read more.