And scholars now talk excitedly about the prospect of analyzing cave paintings in Africa. “99.9 percent of rock art is undated,” says Smith, citing, as an example, ocher representations of ...

the oldest known cave art in the world, and were created at least 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa, therefore they must have been painted by Neanderthals.

Cova Dones, the cave in question, lies close to Spain’s eastern coast in Valencia, whereas most of the country’s ancient art—including the famous prehistoric cave paintings of Altamira—is ...