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A row has broken out about the artistic capabilities of our Neanderthal cousins. Last year, a research team announced that cave paintings found in Spain were at least 64,800 years old, implying that the artists were Neanderthals, as modern humans aren鈥檛 thought to have arrived in western Europe by that time. Now, a group of 44 researchers has written a strongly worded critique of the dating of these paintings, claiming that 鈥渢here is still no convincing evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art.鈥�

But the team that carried out the dating of the prehistoric paintings is standing firm. 鈥淣one of the criticisms hold,鈥� says Dirk Hoffmann at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. 鈥淭hey seem to be driven by the belief that Neanderthals were not able to paint in caves.鈥�

Hoffmann is part of a team led by Alistair Pike from the University of Southampton, UK, that has been studying prehistoric cave art in Spain for more than a decade. Last year, the team reported a of three paintings in the Monte Castillo region of Spain: a rectangular sign, a hand stencil and red traces on stalagmites.

Calcite cover

These are covered with a mineral called calcite, which precipitates out of water trickling down the cave walls. This calcite contains radioactive uranium, which decays into thorium at a known rate. By comparing the amount of uranium and thorium, the age of the calcite can be deduced and hence so can the age of paintings underneath. Using this technique, Pike and his colleagues determined the calcite to be 64,800 years old, so the paintings underneath must be at least that old. If so, this art dates back to before the arrival of modern humans in western Europe, and it is therefore likely that it was created by Neanderthals instead.

It was a ground-breaking discovery, suggesting that the capacity of Neanderthals for symbolic thought was similar to ours and that the ability to make art may have been inherited from the common ancestor we share with Neanderthals, which lived 500,000 years ago.

However, the findings have proved controversial. At the centre of the controversy is the nature of the calcite that covers the drawings. If uranium leached out of the calcite, or thorium leached in, then the paintings would appear older than they really are. Pike鈥檚 team controlled for this, but not everyone is convinced.

鈥淭he problem is that we can鈥檛 exclude other scenarios explaining the old dates,鈥� says Maxime Aubert at Griffith University, Australia, who uses the uranium-thorium technique to date cave art in Borneo and recently discovered the world鈥檚 oldest figurative art there.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not questioning the possibility that Neanderthals could have created it. Our arguments are based strictly on the evidence presented for a small number of sites in Spain, [and] on the methods used to date it,鈥� says Randall White at New York University, who is lead author of the critique of Pike鈥檚 study.

One strand of White鈥檚 argument is that almost all the evidence found so far points to an artistic explosion in cave art in western Europe that started around 40,000 years ago when modern humans arrived there, and that 鈥渇igurative art starts at the time that modern humans people the planet鈥�.

If Neanderthals were decorating cave walls 20,000 years before modern humans came on the scene, this marks a radical departure from our understanding of the cognitive capacities of our sister species. 鈥淲e have a gigantic sample upon which archaeological science has based its knowledge,鈥� says White. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a particular group of scholars who have made it their business to advance the cause of Neanderthals. Sometimes I think it goes beyond the available evidence and I think this is one of those cases.鈥�

But White鈥檚 argument, too, has proved controversial. Palaeoanthropologist John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin鈥揗adison described the paper as a 鈥溾�� on Twitter.

Wow, Journal of Human Evolution just published a total rant coauthored by more than 40 archaeologists against the idea that Neandertals ever painted in a cave. I certainly hope this is part of a dialogue with responses to come and not an editorial stance.

鈥� John Hawks (@johnhawks)

Hawks wasn鈥檛 involved with either Pike鈥檚 study or White鈥檚 critique. He added: 鈥淚 agree that we must be vigilant about the possibility of systematic error in 鈥榦ld鈥� uranium-thorium dates. [鈥�] But the idea that we can discard inconvenient data points because 鈥榯he whole pattern of archaeology鈥� is against it is a strikingly nonscientific attitude.鈥�

鈥楻idiculous argument鈥�

This is a view shared by Paul Pettitt at Durham University, UK, who was part of Pike鈥檚 team. 鈥淲hite and his co-authors incorrectly refer to our paper as contradicting a century of research, which is a ridiculous argument,鈥� he says. 鈥淧rehistoric archaeology has advanced, like evolution, as punctuated equilibrium. Sure, radical implications need to be assessed carefully, but do they really think that, in our rush to 鈥榙emonstrate Neanderthal art鈥�, we鈥檝e run roughshod over scientific standards?鈥�

What could settle this impasse? White says that the age should be confirmed using techniques such as carbon dating, though this method can only give reliable dates for objects no more than about 50,000 years old. Alternatively, researchers could use a spectroscopy technique to identify the chemical formula of the paint, then check to see if it matches what was used for other paintings in the cave.

However, another discovery from earlier this year could confound the situation even further. A 210,000-year-old skull found in a Greek cave appears to have belonged to a modern human, suggesting our species was in Europe much earlier than thought. This potentially makes it harder to attribute even 65,000-year-old European art to Neanderthals.