U-Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain

A number of caves in Europe contain exquisite ancient art. Most of the art has been thought to be produced during the time of last glaciation by recently arrived modern humans, but dating of the art has been problematic because the art contains only minimal amounts of carbon for radiocarbon dating. Pike et al. (p. 1409; see the cover; see the Perspective by Hellstrom) have now obtained U-series dates on the calcite crusts that formed over the art from 11 caves in northwestern Spain. The ages from three caves are older than 35,000 years ago, and one dates to nearly 41,000 years ago. The earliest art used primarily red and was relatively formless; animal depictions appeared later. This dating is near the time of the arrival of modern humans and, because Neandertals were also present, complicates identifying the artists.

Paleolithic cave art is an exceptional archive of early human symbolic behavior, but because obtaining reliable dates has been difficult, its chronology is still poorly understood after more than a century of study. We present uranium-series disequilibrium dates of calcite deposits overlying or underlying art found in 11 caves, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo, and Tito Bustillo, Spain. The results demonstrate that the tradition of decorating caves extends back at least to the Early Aurignacian period, with minimum ages of 40.8 thousand years for a red disk, 37.3 thousand years for a hand stencil, and 35.6 thousand years for a claviform-like symbol. These minimum ages reveal either that cave art was a part of the cultural repertoire of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or that perhaps Neandertals also engaged in painting caves.