Paintings in El Castillo Cave in Puente Viesgo.

Indeed, it was from about this date that the earliest began to emerge in caves and rock shelters around the world, but especially throughout the Franco-Cantabrian region.

Painting of a bison in the cave of Altamira

For another important site of cave painting from Eastern Europe, see: (30,000 BCE).

Fantastic Prehistoric Cave Paintings.

Human occupation was limited to the cave mouth, although paintings were created throughout the length of the cave. The artists used charcoal and ochre or haematite to create the images, often diluting these pigments to produce variations in intensity and creating an impression of chiaroscuro. They also exploited the natural contours in the cave walls to give their subjects a three-dimensional effect. The Polychrome Ceiling is the most impressive feature of the cave, depicting a herd of extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus) in different poses, two horses, a large doe, and possibly a wild boar.

Represents the oldest cave painting in Russia.

Archaeological excavations in the cave floor found rich deposits of artifacts from the Upper Solutrean (c. 18,500 years ago) and Lower Magdalenean (between c. 16,500 and 14,000 years ago). Both periods belong to the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. In the millennia between these two occupations, the cave was evidently inhabited only by wild animals. Human occupants of the site were well-positioned to take advantage of the rich wildlife that grazed in the valleys of the surrounding mountains as well as the marine life available in nearby coastal areas. Around 13,000 years ago a rockfall sealed the cave’s entrance, preserving its contents until its eventual discovery, which occurred after a nearby tree fell and disturbed the fallen rocks.

The next oldest paintings are those in Chauvet Cave, situated in the Ardeche region of France.

During the Mesolithic period, humans developed cave paintings, ..

In the cave of La Vache, archeologists found a layer of charcoal underneath the black pigment of the paintings, indicating that a preparatory sketch had been made prior to the application of paint.

This applies to most animal cave paintings, hand stencils and all abstract symbols.

Paleolithic Cave Paintings - Jim Hopper

But if you were to start the topic in 12kya, you would miss being able to talk about cave art, which we have heard here at Schools Prehistory that lots of teachers want to do. Cave paintings or engravings and portable art all date to the Upper Palaeolithic, when Homo sapiens first arrived in Europe. Not much is known in Britain, but there is some at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire. If you want to start at this point, you’ll need this timeline.

Cave Painting, Prehistoric: Characteristics, Origins, Types

Cro-Magnon Man, Grimaldi Man) were responsible for the glorious cave painting in France and the Iberian peninsular, as well as the miniature "venus" sculptures and the found in the caves of Vogelherd, Hohle Fels, and Hohlenstein-Stadel.

Lascaux Cave Paintings - Bradshaw Foundation

Let alone, how many of you have been inside a cave that has not been pre-lighted? I’ve been in three caves, one created naturally, (the Oregon Caves near Cave Junction Oregon), and two man made caves created by mineral hunting miners at the end of the nineteenth century. One of those caves had many curves within it, some turning left others going to the right right, and no matter how hard you tried shadows existed everywhere. Hell just talking to people inside that cave was difficult if they were not standing right next to you because of the way shadows dance right behind the light. Which demands we are all being asked to believe… the person who created those paintings had an incredible amount of painting skills, could build some of kind of supporting device strong enough to hold his/her weight… and then this same person had to either build massive fires extremely close to where those paintings were being painted or used some other kind of advanced lighting system to cut down on all the shadows created by artificial light, (ie… fire or electricity.) If you want to test just how difficult a task that so called primitive cave person had to solved… go into the biggest room in your house and with no other lighting… put a flashlight anywhere behind you and then try to draw something that covers thirty percent of your wall. Just doing that simple exercise will show you how many times you have to move your flashlight just to create one simple painting just so you can stay within the margins of coherency. Or if you have a whole bunch of flashlights how many do you need to help defend against your own shadow casting darkness… let alone how many more flashlights do you need to prevent phantom line chasing? You see when you add it all together, the cave paintings inside that one cave proves either the academic world is either horrifically lost in their own stupidity, or they think you are not smart enough to see that the visual evidence destroys their horrifically ridiculous explanations. The evidence is overwhelming, no modern teaching of what equals a caveman could’ve created those paintings, period! Which means either carbon dating is horrifically flawed, or our truly ancient ancestors are a hell’va lot smarter and more advanced than what we’ve been tricked into believing.