Cave art is one of the most recognisable features of the European Upper Palaeolithic. We know that it spanned at least 20,000 years, almost the entirety of the Upper Palaeolithic, but we still have only a rudimentary understanding of how it evolved. Now, by applying a method using uranium-series dating, a technique not previously used in this context, we are able to show that the earliest examples are older still: they belong to a period when the dwindling Neanderthal population overlapped with our own species, Homo sapiens, as it began to colonise Europe.
