Cave paintings, dating back between 1200 and 34,000 years, are found in many hundreds of caves in Spain and France. The purpose of these paintings is unknown, but they depict large wild animals and human hands. They confirm the existence of extinct animals and the sophistication of ancient humans. The paintings also support the hypothesis that humans expanded eastward from Africa due to the uninhabitability of much of Europe and Asia during the last great ice age. The reason why cave paintings older than 32,000 years have not been found is unknown.
Many hundreds of caves, 350 in Spain and France alone, have prehistoric artwork dated between approximately 1200 and 34,000 years old. The purpose of these cave paintings is not precisely known. Many attribute religious or spiritual significance to them, but this is just one theory among many. Other interpretations hold that cave paintings were ways of conveying information to others, or simply art for its own sake. However, many cave paintings are found deep in caves, making it unlikely that these paintings were for explicit display purposes. Arguments by modern Aboriginal people in Australia suggest that Indigenous painting is done for a variety of reasons: mainly for magic against humans or animals, or for record keeping.
Cave paintings tend to feature scenes of large wild animals such as aurochs (the extinct ancestors of domesticated cows), bison, horses and deer. Numerous art tracings of human hands have been discovered, as well as art designs traced with fingers, called “finger fluting”. These enigmatic finger grooves are usually performed on a surface of moonmilk, a white, cheese-like calcareous precipitate composed of carbonate minerals in different crystalline stages. Moonmilk is only found in caves.
Mostly, cave paintings tell us what we already know: that there were modern humans in Africa, Europe and Australia tens of thousands of years ago and these people were sophisticated enough to practice some kind of artwork. This discovery is confirmed by the discovery of many non-rock painting relics such as flint tools, figurines and carved animal bones. Cave paintings confirm the existence of animals now totally extinct, such as the aurochs, or animals extinct in a certain range, such as the European bison (which has been extinct in most of western Europe since 2000 years ago). The distinctive Lascaux style of cave painting, which is the most famous, died out about 10,000 years ago, when people in present-day France began adopting an agricultural lifestyle and settling in villages.
Depictions of reindeer in Spanish caves have supported the hypothesis, corroborated by the fossil record, that reindeer lived in the area around the time of the last great ice age, which reached its greatest extent 18,000 years ago. At the time, most of the British Isles and Northern Europe were covered by continental glaciers, making them uninhabitable. Southern Europe only – France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, etc. – was habitable in the region. In fact, the uninhabitability of much of Europe and Asia probably prompted humans to expand eastward from Africa, where they colonized Southeast Asia and Australia. Some of the earliest evidence of human colonization outside of Africa has been found in Australia, from around 50,000 years ago. It is not known why cave paintings older than 32,000 years have not been found – perhaps humanity has not reached the necessary level of cultural or artistic development to begin producing them up to that point, or the areas simply were not heavily populated.
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