Researchers have determined that hand stencils in Maltravieso Cave are more than 66,000 years old, suggesting that Neanderthals, not modern humans, were the world's first artists.

A red hand stencil. A series of lines that look like a ladder. A collection of red dots. These images, painted in ocher on cave walls in Spain, are the oldest-known examples of cave art ever found.

Children also believed to be responsible for what could be the world’s oldest art, a set of ancient hand and foot prints found in Tibet last year that were made between 169,000 and 226,000 years ...

The hand stencil is at least 39,900 years old (see picture above, top right), making it the oldest example of this common ancient art form ever found (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature13422).

40,000-year-old cave paintings include 'oldest hand stencil known to science' Drawings in a cave in Borneo have been found to be 30,000 years older than previously thought.