The history of visual art in Europe is included in the art of Europe, sometimes referred to as Western art. The Upper Paleolithic rock and cave paintings and petroglyphs, which defined the transitional period between the Paleolithic and Iron Age, are the origins of European ancient art.(Source: ) Literary chronicles of European art frequently commence with the Aegean civilizations, which originated in the third millennium BC. But it is only in Ancient Greek art—which Rome appropriated, altered, and spread throughout most of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia with the Roman Empire—that a coherent trend of artistic evolution within Europe becomes evident. Over the course of the following two millennia, the impact of Classical art fluctuated, appearing to fade into obscurity in some areas of the Medieval era, reappearing in the Renaissance, experiencing a phase of what some early art historians perceived as "decay" in the Baroque era, resurfacing in refined form in Neo-Classicism, and finally resurfacing in Post-Modernism.