Holistic Approaches to the Comprehensive Management of Rock Art in the Digital Age

Rock art is one of the most widespread, long-lasting, ancient, and enigmatic cultural expressions of all those that coexist on planet Earth. It has developed independently over thousands of years through peoples and cultures all over the globe, whether it was through paintings or through carvings. Rock art has driven the interest of both researchers and amateurs for centuries in their aim at understanding its meaning. The UNESCO has protected and given it a special interest. Thus, the World Heritage list includes a declaration of more than 40 sites representative of Rock art in the world spread throughout 33 countries and 5 continents (see Table 1). No other type of Cultural Heritage of such a specific category has that honor. Discoveries such as the Altamira caves in Spain in the middle of the nineteenth century or the Chauvet cave in France, over one hundred years after, have caused commotion in the public opinion and the international scientific community. Its value is such that, in Spain, for example, rock art is protected in its entirety and directly by Act 16/1985 of June 25th, on the Spanish Heritage where article 40.2 grants the maximum category of protection to all manifestations of rock art found in Spain (Fernandez et al. 2012). UNESCO, on the other hand, is currently working to reinforce such recognition through the creation of the International Centre for Rock Art that will be located in Spain. This center, category 2, reinforces and consolidates the interest the UNESCO has in rock art, since at present there are only six other centers of equal category and related to world heritage around the world.