New dating method shows cave art is older: Did Neanderthals do it?

Rodrigo De Balbin Behrmann

A researcher from the University of Bristol removes samples from Tito Bustillo Cave in Spain. The stalactite is painted with a red figure that dates back 29,000 to 36,000 years.

By Alan Boyle

When archaeologists tried out a new technique to determine the age of Spain's most famous Paleolithic cave paintings, they were surprised to discover that the paintings were thousands of years older than previously thought — so old that it's conceivable they were painted by Neanderthals.

The technique just might change the way we think about the paintings, and the way we think about our long-extinct, long-maligned Neanderthal cousins as well. 

"Neanderthals, of course, have had this bad press for a long time," the University of Barcelona's Joao Zilhao, a member of the research team, told reporters. "But the research developments over the last decade have shown that this is probably not deserved."  More >>