Maltravieso: Europe's oldest hand stencils were made by Neanderthals

In 2018, a study published in Science overturned our understanding of prehistoric art. Negative hand stencils preserved in Maltravieso cave at Caceres (Spain) were dated by the uranium-thorium method to at least 66,000 years ago. This date precedes the arrival of Homo sapiensHomo sapiensThe present-day human species, which emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago, the only surviving human lineage after the extinction of Neanderthals and Denisovans.→ in Europe by more than 20,000 years. The conclusion is inescapable: these works, among the oldest known graphic expressions, were made by NeanderthalsNeanderthalsA fossil humanity of Eurasia, robust and cold-adapted, extinct around 40,000 years before present.→.

Maltravieso cave, located in the centre of Caceres, has been known since 1951. It already contained paintings and engravings attributed to the PalaeolithicPalaeolithicThe oldest and longest period of prehistory (c. 3.3 Ma–12,000 BC), defined by chipped stone tools and a hunter-gatherer way of life.→, but none appeared older than those of Chauvet or Lascaux. The dating method changed everything. Uranium-thorium dating allows the calcite crusts that form over paintings to be dated, giving a minimum age. For Maltravieso, this minimum is 66,000 years^[1]. The finding is not unique: other Spanish caves (La Pasiega, Ardales) have yielded similar or even older dates.

Negative hand stencils: a universal gesture

Negative hand stencils are among the most widespread forms of rock art worldwide, from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi to the cliffs of Patagonia. The method is simple: a hand is placed against the wall, and pigment (ochreOchreA red or yellow mineral pigment (iron oxides), used from prehistory for adornment, funerary rites and art.→, manganese) is sprayed around the fingers. The hand stands out in negative against the coloured background. This elementary gesture, found on every inhabited continent, seems to betray a universal need to leave a mark - to signal one's presence or belonging to a group.

The fact that Neanderthals practised this same rite challenges the long-held assumption of a cognitive divide between them and Homo sapiens. For decades, symbolic art was considered the exclusive preserve of our species, one of the hallmarks of "behavioural modernity" accompanying the out-of-AfricaAfricaThe cradle of humankind: the continent where the first hominins appeared, then Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago, before the expansion to the rest of the world.→ migration. The Maltravieso dating, combined with other discoveries - shell ornaments from Cueva de los Aviones (Spain, over 115,000 years), stalagmiteStalagmiteA calcite formation rising from a cave floor by drip-by-drip deposition; its slow growth allows precise dating.→ rings at Bruniquel (France, 176,000 years) - paints the portrait of a far more sophisticated Neanderthal than previously imagined.

A scientific controversy still very much alive

Uranium-thorium dating has its limitations. It does not date the paint itself, but the mineral layer covering it. If the calcite formed after the painting - as is probable - the work is necessarily older still. But contamination or uranium remobilisation can skew results. Some researchers, including Francesco d'Errico, have voiced methodological reservations and called for independent replication^[2].

Nevertheless, the convergence of evidence is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Maltravieso is not an isolated case: it is one link in a growing chain of evidence that is year by year redrawing the portrait of a Neanderthal capable of symbolic thought, ritual behaviour, and perhaps a form of self-awareness comparable to our own.