While the agrarian revolution of the Neolithic period took hold in the Near East, in South and Central America, and in Southeast Asia, such advances were slower to arrive in Europe.  This rock painting of a group of hunters attacking a herd as it emerges from a river shows that hunting remained a chief preoccupation of these people well into the New Stone Age.

        But changes and advances are nevertheless evident.  Unlike earlier paintings that are located deep within caverns, these Valtorta Gorge paintings are found on smooth limestone walls in shallow rock shelters and beneath cliff overhangs.  The subjects are portrayed differently, too.  Here, the human figure is given prominence: humans are depicted hunting animals, fighting, and dancing together, as a group or community.  This scene also prominently displays the use of bows and arrows, weapons not seen in earlier Paleolithic art.