Animals are among the most recurrent subjects in global rock art traditions, with some of the earliest known representations dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic. Their centrality reflects the deep and multifaceted relationship between humans and the animal world, from which communities obtained food, labour, traction, and, over time, a range of secondary products essential to subsistence. This relationship was not merely economic: animals also held significant ideological and symbolic roles, serving as mediators of reality, markers of identity, or protagonists of widely disseminated mythic narratives shared across cultural spheres.
Their depictions further mirror the ecological diversity of the landscapes in which rock art was produced, revealing how the same species—or, conversely, different species—could acquire comparable symbolic meanings in distinct environmental and cultural settings. The study of animal imagery in rock art therefore offers a valuable lens through which to explore human–animal dynamics at economic, ideological, social, and environmental levels.