In the Spanish caves of Nerja near Malaga, perhaps the oldest known rock carvings have been discovered - and the first, the authors of which may have been Neanderthals
The strange squiggles that resemble DNA double strings actually depict pinnipeds that served as food for the locals, says José Luis Sanchidrian of the University of Cordoba, Spain. According to him, they have no analogues in Paleolithic art. The remains of coal found in six paintings have been radiocarbon dated.
They are 43.5–42.3 thousand years old, so the drawings may have been created much earlier than the rock paintings of the French Chauvet Cave (about 30 thousand years ago). But this has yet to be proven by dating the pigments themselves.
If it turns out that the Neanderthals really did not shy away from "painting", it will be a real bomb. According to modern ideas, Neanderthals survived in the south and west of the Iberian Peninsula up to 37 thousand years ago - five thousand years after they were supplanted (or assimilated) by modern people in other parts of Europe. However, there is no reason to believe that people had not reached modern Andalusia by the time the drawings were created.
Until recently, it was believed that Neanderthals were not capable of creating works of art. A number of objects of stone and shells with traces of paint, as well as ocher finds at their sites, suggest otherwise, although examples of Neanderthal rock art have remained unknown until now. Nevertheless, some researchers believe that Neanderthals were not inferior to Homo sapiens in strength of imagination, creativity, symbolic thinking.
The Nerja Caves were discovered in 1959 by a group of boys hunting bats. The excavation continues. The drawings will not be presented to the public until next year.