washington the life of our prehistoric ancestors might not have been so drab after all anthropologists have discovered numerous rock engravings across europe that appear to be a copper age version of animation and may have played a key role in audiovisual performancesthe artwork depicting fights dances or hunts dating back to 4000 to 1000 bc is more than mere images according to researchers from cambridge university and sankt poeltens university of applied sciences fh in austria the cliff engravings in our opinion are not just pictures but are part of an audiovisual performance discovery news quoted frederick baker of cambridge universitys museum of archaeology and anthropology as sayinghe added there was still no moving image but the pictures created sequences like in animation this was not just a treat for the eyes but also for the ears as these rock engravings are especially found in locations with particular echoes in this sense the rock engravings are not just static images but pictures that created a story in the mind of the viewer just like at the cinemathe ancient cinema often depicted fights dances or hunts but never showed death and rarely portrayed women the projects coordinators said the researchers have now joined hands for a prehistoric picture project with weimars bauhaus university in germany to recreate these films using computer technology to establish the sequence of images and animate them like in a cartoon the project is being conducted in valcamonica in italys northern lombardy region where the highest concentration of such engravings some 100000 pictures can be found