At first glance, the daubs of paint are barely visible on the rough stone high in the French Alps, but new scans of prehistoric cave 'graffiti' found there is revealing new details of the rock art.
British and French archaeologists have used laser analysis to scan the paintings at the high altitude site in Southern France, 2,133 metres (6,890 ft) above sea level.
Originally discovered by chance in 2010 at a rock shelter known as Abri Faravel, the paintings are thought to be thousands of years old.
Researchers say that while other regions the Alps have examples of engraved rock art, painted rock art at high altitudes is extremely rare and the Abri Faravel paintings are the highest yet to be found.
According to the team, which was led by archaeologists at the University of York, the remote mountain area is believed to have been an important pasturing ground back to the Medieval and beyond.
Armed with scanners and car batteries, the team used laser and white light to map the topography of the rock shelter and the surroundings.
In addition to revealing new detail about the ancient daubings, the scans have been used to make a virtual model designed to give viewers an idea of what it's like to walk around the remote high altitude landscape – with the rock shelter where the ancient paintings were found central to the virtual model.
Dr Kevin Walsh, an archaeologist at University of York and lead researcher on the project, told MailOnline: 'It's about putting this rock shelter into its landscape context.
'That's incredibly important when it comes to studying any kind of archaeological site – thinking about the surround landscape, what people could see, what kind of environment they were dealing with.'
The digital models form part of a larger project which the team has been working on since 1998, focusing on high altitude activities of 2,000 metres plus in the Alps over the last 2,000 years, with research published online.
Shepherds still use the region today, but only during the summer months once snow has cleared.
'It's part of a bigger project about human use of high altitude landscapes,' explained Dr Walsh, who told MailOnline the models are also important to put the rock art into context.
The rock shelter and prehistoric art were discovered in 2010 in the Parc National des Ecrins, in the French Alps (located on map). Archaeologists believe that the area went through phases of human activity from the Mesolithic period through to the medieval period (8,000 to around 1,500 years ago)
The researchers hope that the project will shed more light on human activity in high altitude areas, which today may be thought of as the preserve of experienced walkers and climbers.
'What it does show is that whereas today people may see these high altitude-areas as being extreme environments that only mountaineers and hikers, who are used to that kind of thing, would go to,' explained Dr Walsh.
'In the past, maybe 4,000 or 5,000 years ago, people were living and working in these landscapes and that's the kind of thing that our project has demonstrated, that the origins of activity of high altitude go back a very long time,' he added.
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