The first artists
Deep inside the Cueva de Nerja, far from the public galleries, a series of six simple paintings depict what appear to be seals. For decades, their age was unknown. In 2012, a study announced a startling discovery: organic residue found near the paintings was radiocarbon dated to between 42,300 and 43,500 years old. This date would make them the oldest known works of art in the world, predating the famous paintings at Chauvet Cave in France by some 10,000 years.
The dating placed the art in a time when Homo neanderthalensis were the only known human inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. Skeletal remains and tools found in the cave confirm their presence. The arrival of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, to this specific region is generally thought to have occurred after this period. If the date holds, it suggests Neanderthals were capable of creating figurative art, a capacity long believed to be exclusive to modern humans. The paintings' subject matter, seals, also points to Neanderthal authorship, as seals were a known part of their diet in this coastal region.
A controversial date
The claim that these are Neanderthal paintings rests on a dating method that is the subject of intense scientific debate. The original study did not date the pigment of the paintings directly. Instead, researchers dated tiny charcoal particles found less than four inches away from the seal figures. The assumption is that this charcoal came from torches used to light the cave wall for the artist.
Subsequent research has introduced more uncertainty. Some studies using uranium-thorium (U-Th) dating on the thin calcite layers that formed over cave paintings elsewhere in Spain have produced even older dates for other markings, suggesting a Neanderthal origin for symbolic behavior. Other scientists have questioned the reliability of U-Th dating in these cave environments. Research shows that uranium can leach from the rock over time, which would skew the results and produce artificially old ages. Until the pigments of the Nerja seals themselves can be dated directly, their authorship remains an open and contentious question in the study of human origins.