Petroglyphs of the Mongolian Altai

Twelve thousand carvings tracking humanity's turn from hunting to herding to horseback

In the high valleys of the Mongolian Altai, more than twelve thousand petroglyphs mark the slopes at Tsagaan Salaa–Baga Oigor, Upper Tsagaan Gol and Aral Tolgoi. The earliest may reach back eleven thousand years, to a greener age of big-game hunters; later panels fill with herds, chariots and mounted riders — a continuous stone chronicle of the peoples who became the horse nomads of the steppe.