with more than 140 sites in southern France, constitutes in our view a new and particularly efficient way of approaching Neolithic societies and makes a new and certainly complementary contribution to the understanding of neolithic cultural geography, dynamics and lifeways. We will focus here on the physico-chemical analysis of the coloring matter of schematic rock art which provides information on various aspects of societies.The research into the characterization of coloring matter first informs on the know-how, the techniques used to make pictorial matter (grinding, use of binder, heating). It used also gives information on the circulation of the matter, the uses of the territory and the social practices associated to rock art. Moreover , the physico-chemical characterization of pictorial matter allows for a better understanding of the structure of graphic systems, their syntax (by proposing groupings of figures based on their composition, by identifying relative chronologies...), an essential aspect of understanding the cognitive nature of graphic systems, particularly of non-figurative ones.We will present our work in progress on one major schematic rock art site, Otello rock shelter, in Bouches-du-Rhône (France), chosen for the abundance of the iconography, the polychromy and the chronological succession of different graphic phases and the presence of coloring geological materials in the rock shelter and around. We will present our methodology and the complementarity of the analytical methods. We will highlight the importance to work at different scales, from grain size to wall dimension, with both non-invasive (non-contact analysis, directly on the rock) and non-destructive (a micro-sample is taken and kept after analysis) approach, and both with point and imaging analyses