4194) Did You Know Series (122): Archaeologists using modern technologvy have discovered some of the World’s Oldest Paintings which surprisingly were made Long Before Humans Existed, and very Sophisticated:
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Ancient cave paintings dating back 65,000 years are turning human history on its head.
Found in remote caves across four continents, these artworks suggest a shocking origin—and they weren’t made by who you think.
World’s Oldest Paintings Found
A series of newly analysed cave paintings—some dated to 65,000 years ago—are forcing archaeologists to reexamine long-standing assumptions about the origins of symbolic behavior and who first practiced it.
Found in hidden caves across Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Australia, the artwork may predate the arrival of Homo sapiens in these regions by tens of thousands of years.
That timeline raises a provocative question: were Neanderthals or other archaic humans the first artists?
These discoveries challenge the prevailing notion that symbolic art emerged suddenly around 40,000 years ago in Europe with the so-called “creative explosion” linked to anatomically modern humans.
Instead, they suggest that the capacity for abstract thought and cultural expression may have deeper and more geographically widespread roots.
The findings draw from advances in uranium-series dating techniques and remote cave exploration, and they have implications for our understanding of human cognition, social organisation, and migration.
They also bring renewed attention to the cultural contributions of non-sapiens hominins—especially Neanderthals, whose reputation has undergone a major revision in recent years.
The most ancient paintings, found in cave systems in Spain and Indonesia, have been reliably dated using uranium-thorium dating, which measures the decay of uranium isotopes in the calcite deposits that formed over the artwork.
In a landmark 2018 study published in Science, researchers dated Spanish cave art to at least 64,800 years ago, predating the arrival of Homo sapiens in the region by some 20,000 years.
In Southeast Asia, similar techniques were applied to cave art in Sulawesi, Indonesia, where a hand stencil was dated to at least 67,000 years ago, according to a 2023 study in Nature.
These findings significantly extend the known timeline of symbolic expression outside Europe.
The consistency of these results across multiple continents suggests that the creation of symbolic visual forms may not have been a cultural anomaly but a widespread trait among early hominins.
“This is not random pigment on cave walls,” said Dr. Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and co-author of the Sulawesi study. “These are structured compositions that required planning, tools, and cognitive depth.”
Signs of Complexity and Planning:
Far from being crude or simplistic, the artworks exhibit a surprising degree of technical and conceptual sophistication.
In Spain and Indonesia, cave murals depict hunting scenes, animal interactions, and possible cosmological symbols. Some include what appear to be lunar cycles and constellations, suggesting a basic understanding of celestial patterns.
Researchers have identified pigment mixtures made from hematite, manganese oxide, and plant oils, sometimes applied with primitive brushes, feather tips, or hollow bones used for spraying pigment—techniques similar to those employed in much later periods.
Microscopic analysis conducted in South African sites, including Blombos Cave, has revealed engraved ochre artifacts dating back over 70,000 years, supporting the view that symbolic thinking emerged long before the Upper Paleolithic.
At some cave locations, researchers found evidence of scaffolding and surface preparation, indicating collective effort and long-term planning.
“The cognitive implications are significant,” said Dr. Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London. “They suggest that the minds capable of abstraction, memory, and cultural transmission were present in more than one human lineage.”
Reassessing the Neanderthal mind:
The cave art in Northern Spain, including those at La Pasiega, presents a direct challenge to outdated views of Neanderthals as cognitively limited.
The 2018 Science study concluded that the red disk, ladder shapes, and hand stencils in the cave were most likely created by Neanderthals, given the age and the absence of Homo sapiens in the region at the time.
Further support comes from discoveries of decorated shells, pierced pendants, and ochre-stained tools from Neanderthal layers across Europe—findings that suggest symbolic activity was not unique to our species.
A 2021 review in Nature Ecology & Evolution emphasised growing consensus around Neanderthal cultural competence and proposed abandoning the idea of a distinct cognitive “revolution” in favor of gradual evolution across multiple lineages.
Such reinterpretations push researchers to consider a broader spectrum of cognitive and cultural behaviors among early humans.
Australia’s Continuous Tradition:
In newly studied caves in Northern Australia, researchers identified symbolic motifs similar to those found in contemporary Aboriginal art, including geometric forms and stylized animal figures. Oral histories from local Indigenous communities describe these images as representations passed down through generations, potentially marking a cultural continuity that spans over 60,000 years.
Cave painting
This supports what some archaeologists and anthropologists, including those involved in the Madjedbebe excavations, have described as the world’s longest unbroken artistic tradition.
Excavations at the site have confirmed human presence in Australia by at least 65,000 years ago, raising the possibility that early migrants carried with them complex symbolic systems from Africa or developed them independently upon arrival.
“We’re now seeing that early humans, wherever they were, expressed themselves in highly structured, symbolic ways,” said Dr. Alison Crowther, an archaeologist specialising in early human migration. “This art is not only ancient—it’s persistent.”
New technologies have driven these discoveries:
The discoveries are part of a broader shift in archaeology driven by new technologies. Portable XRF scanners, AI-enhanced mapping, and ground-penetrating radar have opened previously inaccessible cave systems.
Non-invasive dating tools now allow for in situ analysis that preserves the context of ancient works.
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