Crossing the border: contrasting styles of rock art in the prehistory of north‐west Iberia

Abstract

Rock art can be regarded as a specialised form of material culture, and at the regional scale it may have exhibited as much diversity as monuments and portable artefacts. Its character might also have changed in relation to different practices and different ways of perceiving and using the landscape. Such contrasts can be identified in the prehistoric rock art found on either side of the modern border between Portugal and Spain and may be related to much broader currents in Iberian archaeology, extending from the Atlantic to the West Mediterranean.