The claim: red marks older than modern Europeans
The study, led by Dirk Hoffmann and published in Science in February 2018, looked at three caves in Spain. At La Pasiega, in Cantabria, the team sampled a red, ladder-shaped sign. At Maltravieso, in Extremadura, they sampled a hand stencil. At Ardales, in Andalusia, they sampled red paint on stalagmite curtains. In all, they analysed more than 60 tiny samples of the calcite crust that had grown over the marks, each less than 10 mm across.
The crusts were dated with uranium-thorium dating, which gives a minimum age for whatever lies underneath. The result: the cave art was older than 64,800 years, at least 20,000 years before the arrival of modern humans in Europe, according to the authors.
Why the date points to Neanderthals
The argument is simple. If the marks are that old, they were made at a time when the only humans living in Iberia were Neanderthals. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, reached that part of Europe much later. So the date decides the painter: accept the date and you accept that Neanderthals painted cave walls.
Notice what kind of marks these are. None of them is an animal. They are lines, a stencil and patches of colour, closer to the abstract signs found in many caves than to the horses and lions of later Ice Age art. That matters for the definition of “art” as much as for the date.
What the critics say
The answer came quickly. A group of researchers led by Ludovic Slimak wrote in the same journal that the laboratory data fit an age of about 47,000 years better than 64,800, which would bring the marks close to the time when modern humans were arriving. They also pointed to a problem with the method itself: if water washed uranium in or out of the crust, or if the calcite trapped thorium from dirt, the clock reads wrong. And they noted a gap of about 25,000 years after the supposed Neanderthal marks with no wall art at all.
Hoffmann’s team replied that the criticisms were unfounded. In 2020, a longer critique led by Randall White and signed by 44 researchers in the Journal of Human Evolution concluded that there is still no convincing evidence that Neanderthals made the cave art of south-western Europe. The field is split, and the split is about chemistry as much as about Neanderthals.
The most recent round came from Maltravieso itself. A study published in 2025, with Hoffmann among the authors, dated 22 crusts over the hand stencils. The oldest gave a minimum age of about 66,700 years, others about 55,200 and 46,600, and some stencils turned out to be much younger, from after the end of the Ice Age. The authors concluded that both Neanderthals and modern humans could have made stencils in the cave.
Other clues: shells, colour and finger marks
The cave walls are not the only evidence. In the same year, another study by much of the same team dated pierced seashells and red and yellow colourants at the Cueva de los Aviones, near Cartagena, to about 115,000 years ago, a date other researchers have also questioned.
In Gibraltar, a cross-hatched pattern scratched into the floor of Gorham’s Cave has been dated to about 39,000 years ago. And in 2023 a team led by Jean-Claude Marquet published lines traced with fingers on the wall of La Roche-Cotard, a cave in the Loire valley in France, sealed by sediment for at least 57,000 years and perhaps 75,000. Paul Pettitt, an archaeologist who had criticised earlier claims, called it as convincing a case as a disturbed site allows.
So, did they?
Put the pieces together and a pattern appears. Neanderthals very likely made marks and wore ornaments: shells, colour, scratched patterns and finger lines all point that way. Whether they painted the Spanish caves more than 64,800 years ago depends on whether you trust the uranium-thorium dates, and on that the experts still disagree.
What nobody claims is a Neanderthal version of the animals of Chauvet. The debate is about lines, dots, stencils and colour, the simplest signs of prehistoric art. If Neanderthals made them, art began earlier, and with a different kind of human, than the old story said.
Where to see it
The three caves of the 2018 study are La Pasiega in Cantabria, Maltravieso in Cáceres and Ardales in the province of Málaga. Access to painted caves in Spain is limited and the rules change, so check the official site of each cave before planning a visit.
Sources
- Hoffmann, D. L. et al., “U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art”, Science 359 (2018), 912-915; reply to comment, Science (2018).
- Slimak, L. et al., “Comment on ‘U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art'”, Science (2018).
- White, R. et al., “Still no archaeological evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art”, Journal of Human Evolution (2020).
- Hoffmann, D. L. et al., “Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals 115,000 years ago”, Science Advances (2018).
- Marquet, J.-C. et al., “The earliest unambiguous Neanderthal engravings on cave walls: La Roche-Cotard”, PLOS ONE (2023).
- Rodríguez-Vidal, J. et al., engraving in Gorham’s Cave, PNAS (2014).
- Standish, C. D. et al., U-series dating of the hand stencils of Maltravieso cave, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 61 (2025), 104891.
