A “Lascaux open air site” in the Swiss Alps

Abstract

In 2020 several rocks with painted representations of animals and a few human beings were discovered in a forest in the Valle Mesolcina in the Swiss Canton of Grisons. An initial inspection on site quickly revealed that these were not original prehistoric rock paintings, but modern copies closely based on well-known motifs. The rock paintings were documented photographically and recorded as “archaeological” sites. Subsequently attempts were made to identify the artist. Thanks to local contacts it was possible to discover the creator of the “prehistoric” rock paintings, which he made in the year 2000. In spring 2020 the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Grisons (Switzerland) received information of a new find by two archaeologists working in the neighbouring Canton of Ticino, Giorgio Noghara and Christian Bader. In the Valle Mesolcina/Misox, a valley in the Italian-speaking south of the canton, apparently ancient paintings were discovered on various rocks in a forest above Pian San Giacomo. Initial photos immediately showed that these paintings were very similar to those from the Upper Palaeolithic. But was such a thing possible in the Canton of Grisons, in the middle of the Alps, original rock art of the Upper Palaeolithic?