Chinese archeologists have discovered two 6,000-year-old sites with colored cave paintings and fingerprints in a mountain in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Wang Dafang, an official with the Inner Mongolia Cultural Bureau, said the paintings from the Paleolithic Period were discovered in two caves on Yabrai Mountain on the edge of the world's fourth largest desert, Badain Jaran, in Araxan League.

Archeologists believe the fingerprints were painted with mixed dyestuff of ochre powder, animal blood and water. Painters may have used bone pipes to blow the dyestuff onto the cave walls.

Wang said three other sites of Paleolithic cave paintings with fingerprints had been found in Araxan.

"The cave environment, the painting style and the dyestuff used for the paintings here are similar to European Paleolithic cave paintings," Wang said.

He added the cave paintings in Araxan have been badly damaged by weathering and rain water erosion. Except for the fingerprints, no drawings can be made out.

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