The Oldest Cave Paintings In Europe

The oldest cave paintings in Europe have been found in recent years in Spain. These are prehistoric paintings that are around 65,000 years old and that archaeologists have found spread over three very distant points.

The places of the finds are three caves located in Cantabria, in the province of Malaga and in the town of Cáceres itself. Let’s discover these treasures!

Antiquity of these cave paintings

Until now, in Spain the oldest cave paintings that had been discovered were located in the Basque Country. Specifically in the province of Guipúzcoa, where the Altxerri cave is located, whose antiquity dates back to about 39,000 years ago. However, there is a big difference between this Basque cave and the other three older ones that we want to tell you about.

Possibly, the main difference is that the caves of La Pasiega in Cantabria, Ardales in Malaga, and Maltravieso in Cáceres were painted by Neanderthal man. Yes, a species of Homo now extinct, on which scientists have different opinions regarding its links with Homo sapiens from which modern humanity is descended.

A unique dating method

Another important difference is found in the materials used to paint these three caves. They are pigments created with inorganic materials, which would have been impossible to date thanks to the traditional Carbon-14 method.

Therefore, in order to calculate the age of these cave paintings, it has been necessary to resort to uranium-thorium dating. This is a system that would allow finding items to date something like more than half a million years old.

Now that we know who made them and how science has been able to date them, let’s take a tour of these three caves with ancient cave paintings.

Cave of La Pasiega

The territory of Cantabria is known for various tourist and cultural attractions, starting with its extraordinary wealth of cave paintings. The discovery of the La Pasiega cave has recently been added to it, by whose name we can already deduce that it is located in the Pas river valley.

It is clear that this cave does not offer a collection of the beauty of the famous Altamira paintings (image above), but it is much older: neither more nor less than 65,000 years. These painted linear signs are found on the wall of this gallery, which extends more than 100 meters into the bowels of the earth.

Ardales Cave

Of this group of three caves with cave paintings, the largest cavity of all is the one in the Ardales Cave, in the province of Malaga. It is a cave that extends for more than a kilometer and was occupied for centuries and millennia by many groups of prehistoric men.

For that reason, there are paintings that historians place in the Paleolithic and different animals can be identified. However, there are some abstract symbols with elongated shapes and also based on curved and elliptical lines. These shapes are the oldest of the set.

Naughty Cave

Usually, cave paintings are found in natural places, and even with difficult access. However, that does not happen in the Maltravieso Cave, which is located in the same urban area of ​​Cáceres, a city that was already declared a World Heritage Site, and which now has another element to increase its wealth.

The dating of a negative hand in this cave has been estimated to be 66,700 years old. A treasure that was also made by someone of an extinct species like the Neanderthals.

In short, a vestige of incalculable value, and that reflects the evolution of the human being by itself. A marvel! Or rather, they are three wonders spread over different parts of the Iberian Peninsula!