art seems to depict real events whilst many other examples are apparently entirely abstract. Prehistoric rock depictions were not purely descriptive. Each motif and design had a "deep significance" that is not always understandable to modern scholars. Interpretation and use Religious interpretations In many instances, the creation of rock art was itself a ritual act. Regional variations Europe In the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe, rock art was produced inside cave systems by the hunter-gatherer peoples who inhabited the continent. The oldest known example is the Chauvet Cave in France, although others have been located, including Lascaux in France, Alta Mira in Spain and Creswell Crags in Britain and Grotta del Genovese in Sicily. The late prehistoric rock art of Europe has been divided into three regions by archaeologists. In Atlantic Europe, the coastal seaboard on the west of the continent, which stretches from Iberia up through France and encompasses the British Isles, a variety of different rock arts were produced from the Neolithic through to the Late Bronze Age. A second area of the continent to contain a significant rock art tradition was that of Alpine Europe, with the majority of artworks being clustered in the southern slopes of the mountainous region, in what is now south-eastern France and northern Italy. Finnish Rock Art Knowth Loughcrew Newgrange Neolithic and Bronze Age rock art in the British Isles Rock Drawings in Valcamonica (World Heritage Site) Balma dei Cervi at Crodo (Piedmont - Italian Alps) Grotta dei Cervi at Porto Badisco (Apulia - Italy) Grotta del Genovese (Sicily) List of rock carvings in Norway Rock carvings at Alta (World Heritage Site) Madara Rider (World Heritage Site) Côa Valley Paleolithic Art (World Heritage Site) Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain (World Heritage Site) Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin (World Heritage Site) Tanum (World Heritage Site) , Rock Art Research Centre and World Heritage Archive, situated in Tanum, Sweden. Africa North Africa South Oran in Algeria. Saharan rock art Tadrart Acacus in Libya – World Heritage Site. Tassili n'Ajjer in Algeria – national park and World Heritage Site, known for its 10,000-year-old paintings. Cave of Swimmers is a cave in southwest Egypt, near the border with Libya, along the western edge of the Gilf Kebir plateau in the central Libyan Desert (Eastern Sahara). It was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian explorer László Almásy. The site contains