Art may be older than Homo sapiens alone can claim
Undisputed figurative sculpture from Hohle Fels is about 40,000 years old—but Neanderthal cave marks in Spain date to 64,800 years, and a 2018 South African find pushed the earliest known Homo sapiens drawing to roughly 73,000 years. Even half-million-year-old shell zigzags remain debated as art.
Prehistoric art covers preliterate cultures until writing, record-keeping, or contact with literate neighbors; end dates therefore differ worldwide. Clear artistic workmanship exists by 40,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic and may start earlier. In September 2018 scientists announced the earliest known Homo sapiens drawing, about 73,000 years old—nine fine crosshatched ochre lines on a fragment that once continued beyond its broken edges—well before previously known 43,000-year-old modern-human drawings. Engraved Pseudodon shells linked to Homo erectus around 500,000 years ago spark disagreement over artistic intent. Symmetrical Acheulean hand axes and disputed figurines such as the Venus of Tan-Tan (before 300 kya) and Venus of Berekhat Ram (250 kya) hint at Middle Paleolithic aesthetics. Blombos Cave stones with grid patterns about 70,000 years old suggest abstraction, though some archaeologists including Richard Klein hesitate to call them the first art.
Painted designs at La Pasiega, a hand stencil at Maltravieso, and red speleothems at Ardales date to 64,800 years—at least 20,000 years before modern humans in Europe—implicating Neanderthals; a 2021 report described a Neanderthal bone carving about 51,000 years old. Oldest undisputed figurative works include the Venus of Hohle Fels and Lion-man from Germany's Schwäbische Alb, about 40,000 years old. Upper Paleolithic portable and cave art spans Chauvet, Altamira, Lascaux, Willendorf, and more. Sulawesi's Pettakere paintings reach about 40,000 years, matching Europe's oldest caves and hinting at a possible African common origin. Lubang Jeriji Saléh on Borneo yielded figurative painting over 40,000 (perhaps 52,000) years old.
Later horizons broaden the map: Mesolithic-to-Neolithic petroglyphs about 10,000–12,000 years old; African naturalistic humans about 8,000 years old; Göbekli Tepe's T-shaped pillars with animal reliefs in the 10th–8th millennium BCE; Bhimbetka rocks around 8000 BC; Gobustan's 6,000-plus carvings over 12,000 years old; Jōmon pottery from the 11th millennium BCE; and Sanxingdui's startling bronzes beside Shang ritual vessels. "Prehistoric" is less a style than a silence of writing—broken whenever archives begin.
Source: Prehistoric art
