an image from the Chauvet Cave paintings
Earlier this year, however, a study was published that dated Paleolithic art from eleven different sites in Spain. At one of these sites, El Castillo, the researchers found an image dating back to 40,000 years ago. This finding displaces the Chauvet Cave paintings as the "oldest" examples of European cave art, and places that honored designation on the site of the El Castillo cave complex.
At 40,800 years old, the tiny smudged dark red dot below the handprints is the oldest dated piece of cave art found to date.
At over 40,000 years old, the El Castillo site confounds our previous notions regarding cave paintings because these particular images could be attributed to Homo sapiens or Neanderthal artists. We know that Neanderthals occupied this area of Spain until around the time they were painted. Conveniently, the 40,000 year date also coincides nicely with the proposed 41,500 year-old date for the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe. Attributing the Neanderthals as the producers of these artworks would most notably imply that humans were not the only ones adept at expressing themselves and communicating through the use of symbols in the Upper Paleolithic. It is clear, however, that we still have a lot of investigating to do before firmly assigning either species as the definitive artists of the El Castillo images.
It is important to keep in mind, also, that just because our oldest concrete archaeological evidence of cave painting dates back to 40,000 years ago doesn't mean that "art" in general dates to this time as well. The painters of scenes at Chauvet Cave and at El Castillo were clearly gifted and well-practiced in their art. It is evident that people must have been practicing art of this sort and other forms of symbolic expression much earlier as well in order to have developed such a rich and complex vocabulary of images by 40,000 years ago. Art doesn't just spontaneously "pop" out of a community without precedents, so, clearly, symbolic expression is older than the first examples we have of it. For researchers on the origins of art, the problem then becomes how to identify "symbolic expression" in otherwise mundane objects. The farther back one goes in time, the more difficult it is to see a clear distinction.
sources:
- Balter, M. "On the Origin of Art and Symbolism." 2009. Science. 323:709-711.
- Zilhao et al. "U Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain." 2012. Science. 336:1409-1413.
Images:
- Chauvet Cave: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipj15VRLGwjCExMUnsxmAlb31xGSAmHohzlKt8yBUObzto-pdLDbxyIhtaaS77-0_otsI9YaK9XCgah2mT4PYGSB0JSCX1pBcmqUJGPGWoa0x6DS5lVG9bb5QKugZ-ggBZz4AVm3vfoNtJ/s1600/lions.jpg
- Dot: http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/549/overrides/spain-cave-art-dated-oldest_54922_600x450.jpg
- Cartoon: http://www.creationism.org/books/TaylorInMindsMen/TaylorIMMhjMammothCavePaintingsM.jpg
