DATED NEANDERTAL CAVE ART PROVIDES A NEW CANDIDATE FOR OLDEST ROCK ART:

"ARTISTIC SURPRISE - Red horizontal and vertical lines painted on the walls of a Spanish cave date to at least 64,800 years ago, a new study finds. Since Homo sapiens had not reached Europe at that time, Neandertals must have created this art, researchers propose. The animal-shaped figure, right, was not dated and its makers remain unknown. Photograph P. Saura." (Bower 2018).

We now have a new candidate for the oldest cave art. Previously, the oldest date for cave art was 45,500 BP for a painted pig in a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi (see RockArtBlog June 5 and February 13, 2021). This date had been obtained by Uranium-Thorium dating. Now, a new round of dating from caves in Spain had come up with astounding dates varying around 65,000 years in age. The Spanish dates also came from Uranium-Thorium dating and so should be considered as seriously as the Indonesian dates have been.

"HAND OFF - Three handprints on a Spanish cave wall (circles) were created by blowing or spitting pigment on hands. Neandertals made these hand stencils at least 66,000 years ago, a new study concludes. Photograph H. Colado." (Bower 2018).

In the sciences there are always doubters, indeed the scientific method requires doubt, yet these results seem pretty solid. “Still, it is ‘nearly impossible’ to generate accurate age estimates of rock art based on uranium measures alone, researchers concluded in 2017 in Quaternary International. Depending on shifting cave conditions and varying amounts of uranium drainage from mineral deposits, this method can over-or underestimate when rock art was created, the scientists argued. Other researchers defend this technique as providing valuable minimum and maximum age estimates for rock art.” (Bower 2018) What I would argue is that if uranium-thorium dating is acceptable for one place, in lieu of evidence that would invalidate it, it should be acceptable for another place as well.

The team were careful and took precautions to control any contamination of the samples. “Here we report U-Th dating results of carbonate formations associated with rock art in three Spanish caves: La Pasiega (Cantabria), Maltravieso (Extremadura), and Doña Trinidad (or Ardales; Andalucia). Our criteria for sample selection and subsequent sampling strategy strictly followed previously described methods. The reliability of the U-Th dating results is controlled by quality criteria for the carbonate as well as by the collection and analysis of multiple subsamples of a given crust.” (Hoffman et al. 2018:912)

Red streaks on a speleotherm. Photograph from Phys.org, 2 August 2021.

“Criteria for reliable minimum (or maximum) ages were met by all samples. The oldest minimum ages from the three caves are consistent and, at 64.8 ka or older for each site, substantially predate the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which has been variously estimated at between 45 ka and 40 ka ago.” (Hoffman et al. 2018:913)

While I am sure that this will not be the last report that credits Neandertals with producing cave art, I find it quite exciting that we are learning so much about their cognitive abilities.

“The authorship of the so-called ‘transitional’ techno-complexes of Europe, which, like the Chatelperronian, feature abundant pigments and objects of personal ornamentation, has long been the subject of debate. Direct or indirect (via acculturation) assignment to modern humans has been based on an ‘impossible coincidence’ argument – that is, the implausibility that Neandertals would independently evolve the behavior just at the time when modern humans were already in, or at the gates of Europe. By showing that the Chatelperronian is but a late manifestation of a long-term indigenous tradition of Neandertal symbolic activity, our results bring closure to the debate.” (Hoffman et al. 2018:915)

“Cave art such as that dated here exists in other caves of Western Europe and could potentially be of Neandertal origin as well. Red-painted draperies are found at Les Merveilles (France; panel VII) and El Castillo (Spain), whereas hand stencils and linear symbols are ubiquitous and, when part of complex superimpositions, always for the base of pictorial stratigraphies. We therefore expect that cave art of Neandertal origin will eventually be revealed in other areas with Neandertal presence elsewhere in Europe. We also see no reason to exclude that the behavior will be equally ancient among coeval non-Neandertal populations of Africa and Asia.” (Hoffman et al. 2018: 915)

This is the truly exciting part of this, that we may eventually find art that was produced by other non-modern hominins, perhaps Denisovans or even Homo erectus. (See A Whole New Type of Rock Art – Ammoglyphs, in RockArtBlog, 22 May 2021)

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Bower, Bruce, 2018, Cave Art Suggests Neandertals Were Ancient Humans’ Mental Equals, February 22, 2018, https://www.sciencenews.org

Hoffman, D. L. et al., 2018, U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art, 23 February 2018, Science, sciencemag.org, pp. 912-15