Some European cave marks may predate modern humans entirely
Parietal art—paint and engraving on cave walls—usually means deep prehistory. Nearly 350 painted caves are known in France and Spain alone. Dates keep shifting: Sulawesi pigs, Spanish hand signs, even claims that Neanderthals painted before Homo sapiens reached Europe.
Cave painting sits with petroglyphs under parietal art and is typically prehistoric. Some teams argue Denisovans or Neanderthals made the oldest pieces; others contest that. The debate matters because abstract marks may track early creativity and spiritual feeling. Dating once stumbled on contaminated radiocarbon and mixed cave debris; pigment, torch marks, and uranium methods now help, though uranium leaching can push ages too far back.
A Liang Metanduno handprint on Muna Island is claimed at least 67,800 years old, older than a Maltravieso candidate once linked to Neanderthals. Sulawesi’s Maros-Pangkep karst yields figurative pig hunts; a 2021 Sulawesi pig is reported over 45,500 years old, and a 2019 pig-hunt scene at least about 51,200 years. Borneo’s Lubang Jeriji Saléh held a then-oldest figurative animal over 40,000 years (perhaps 52,000). A 2018 Iberian study dated red non-figurative signs at Maltravieso, Ardales, and La Pasiega to about 64,000 years—before modern humans in Europe, implying Neanderthal makers if the chemistry holds.
Europe’s early figurative ceiling includes El Castillo at least to 40,000 BCE by uranium-thorium (2012), after Chauvet’s radiocarbon ages before 30,000 BCE drew skepticism for looking “too advanced.” Romania’s Coliboaia, found 2009, sits near Chauvet’s ~32,000-year range. Australia’s Arnhem Land megafauna scenes and Nawarla Gabarnmang charcoal at 28,000 years enlarge the map. Magdalenian polish at Lascaux (~15,000 BCE) and Altamira fades around 10,000 BCE with the Neolithic; later Iberian shelter art (roughly 10,000–5,500 years ago) prefers crowded small humans and animals. Subjects favor bison, horses, aurochs, deer, hand stencils, and finger flutings made by tracing, clay modeling, engraving, and multi-color paint.
Source: Cave painting
