Cave of Maltravieso

The Cave of Maltravieso in Caceres, Extremadura, was discovered in 1951 when a quarry explosion exposed the cavity. It contains 71 hand stencils created by blowing pigment around hands placed on the walls, along with linear designs and animal paintings. Uranium-thorium dating of calcium carbonate crusts over the art revealed the oldest stencils date to at least 66,700 years ago, more than 20,000 years before modern humans reached Europe. This makes them among the strongest evidence that Neanderthals were capable of symbolic artistic expression.