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Earliest Cave Paintings May Not Be From Humans

by Kellie Foxx-Gonzalez | 2:01 pm, June 20th, 2012


Famous cave paintings that mark the walls of Europe may not actually be the first example of humanity’s artistic prowess — in fact, Neadenthals may be Earth’s earliest painters.

The widely known cave paintings, which largely depict hunters, animals, and handprint outlines, were originally thought to date back 30,000 years ago. However, this date may prove incorrect in light of novel technology that uses the thickness of mineral deposits, not carbon dating, to measure the age of these early masterpieces.

João Zilhão, an archaeologist at Spain’s University of Barcelona, and Alistair Pike of the United Kingdom’s University of Bristol dated 50 paintings in 11 Spanish caves. According to Wired, “some handprint outlines are at least 37,000 years old. Several red circles are at least 41,000 years old and may be several thousand years older. That’s 10,000 years older than paintings in France, which until now were considered the oldest cave art.”  That would mean that if these paintings had been done by modern humans, they would have had to arrive in Europe with a tradition of symbolic painting, something very unlikely based upon current archaeological knowledge. The alternative explanation is that they arrived in Europe and suddenly learned to paint, “raising the question of why such an important cultural leap occurred so suddenly, in that particular place.”

Or, perhaps these paintings weren’t created by Homo sapiens at all.

According to NPR, “Neanderthals did perform ritual burials. They made decorative beads and other ornaments. Pike also notes that DNA evidence now suggests that modern humans and Neanderthals interbred,” thus, the ability to make art shouldn’t come as too large of a surprise. If this hypothesis, which needs much more rigorous testing, proves to be true, “anyone…could walk into El Castillo cave and see a Neanderthal hand on the wall.”

However, not everyone is entirely convinced – archaeologists Pat Shipman, an expert on symbolic behavior, finds it doubtful that Neanderthals waited until about the time humans arrived to begin painting figures: ”I find it easiest to assume that people who are already doing that moved into more figurative representations than thinking that an entirely other species of people suddenly came up with making figurative art.”

Either way, the prospect is exciting: with a little more time and testing, science just might bring us one step closer to our evolutionary relatives.

(via NPR and Wired.)

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  • http://twitter.com/tiinasol Tina

    Way to get my hopes up about aliens!

  • Anonymous

    No seriously. That was my first thought.

  • Anonymous

    It’s not so farfetched to think that neanderthals could figure out how to paint since there is evidence of pieces of bone and wood that have decorative shapes carved into them. Making paint is an entirely different type of process, I’m sure, but the creative spark was still there to begin with.

  • Anonymous

    Guilty as charged. What a let down.

  • http://twitter.com/DoctorOddfellow Doctor Oddfellow

    Does anyone else here outside of the scientific community really differentiate Neanderthal from early man? I feel a bit suckered in on a technicality, lol. I was hoping that there was some evidence that a non-hominid species had done some crude art but then I suspected I would have been reading that first on a site bigger than this one, lol.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/INXA6CB6SXKNWDJE32GVBFDVCE Jillie

    So confused. Not humans? I need to brush up on my anthropology, apparently.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=563223409 Vic Horsham

    Good point!  I find it interesting that we still think of them as NOT being directly related to us, given that Homo Sapiens Sapiens DNA includes I think something like 11% neanderthal, with the rest coming from Homo Sapiens themselves.

    *note* I think the percentage I heard was either 8% or 11%. I’ll try and find the source.

  • Anonymous

    I think the article is using the term “humans” as shorthand for Homo sapiens, as opposed to the entire genus Homo.

  • http://twitter.com/DoctorOddfellow Doctor Oddfellow

    My point is the average person, perhaps the average nerd even, believes Neanderthal is part of our evolutionary chain. Not many know the difference. Especially Hollywood. Even fewer know that HS is separate from HSS.

  • Anonymous

     And apparently unaware that Neanderthals are usually considered as humans. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.(Except by determined taxonomic splitters.)

  • Anonymous

    Yeah neandertals are homo sapiens too! Don’t be such speciests, guys. People of non-African descent share between one and four percent neandertal genes, which puts them in homo sapiens neanderthalensis. It’s silly to say they aren’t human.

  • Anonymous

    It’s 1-4% as far as I know, but only for non-Africans. It was discovered last summer, and a pretty major deal re: our understanding of outcompeting vs integrating them.

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