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Home to 100+ prehistoric cave paintings, Painted Bluff in what’s now Alabama is a treasure trove of Indigenous culture and creativity.
Historians say the first cave painting shown here (top) depicts serpentine and humanoid figures. The second painting (bottom) includes a collection of symbols classified as “other”, since it’s the only painting like it in all of the bluff.
The rest of the paintings include symbols like birds, fish, and mammals. A “cross-in-circle” also appears in roughly a third of the paintings — this is a religious symbol common throughout Mississippian cultures.