Oldest ever cave paintings found in Spain. Were they made by Neanderthals?

[RZM]

Prehistoric dots and crimson hand stencils on Spanish cave walls are now the world's oldest known cave art, according to new dating results—perhaps the best evidence yet that Neanderthals were Earth's first cave painters.

If that's the case, the discovery narrows the cultural distance between us and Neanderthals—and fuels the argument, at least for one scientist, that the heavy-browed humans were not a separate species but only another race.

Of the 11 subterranean sites the team studied along northern Spain's Cantabrian Sea coast, the cave called El Castillo had the oldest paintings—the oldest being a simple red disk.

At more than 40,800 years old, "this is currently Europe's oldest dated art by at least 4,000 years," said the study's lead author Alistair Pike, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol in the U.K.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/06/120614-neanderthal-cave-paintings-spain-science-pike/

[Neoma]

1. Does this mean France can't claim to have the oldest anymore?

That's a shame.

[RZM]

2. Looks like it. Chauvet is now in second place

I just happened to watch 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' the other week (Werner Herzog's movie about Chauvet).

Herzog's narration can be a bit much and he didn't emphasize some the stuff that mosts interests me about the drawings, but it's still well worth seeing.

[Neoma]

3. I watched the same thing.

I use Netflix to watch documentaries... and Star Trek.

[Bucky]

4. Mankind's first art and they're trying to make Thankgiving hand-turkeys?

Interesting how the thumbs aren't splayed further out like we would tend to do today.

[frogmarch]

5. Some years ago on TV

I saw a paleoanthropologist demonstrating how such hand stencils were done.

He mixed powdered red ochre with his own saliva and put the mixture into his mouth. Then he placed his hands on the surface he was going to decorate and spat the mixture in short bursts - ptooh ptooh ptooh ptooh ptooh - between his splayed fingers.

[kraj8995]

6. a great news

Its an awesome news now we are getting more close to our historical truth.