New 25,000 Year Old Cave Paintings Discovered in Spain

The newly discovered cave paintings in Spain (image via sott.net)

Cave paintings are so in right now! From Werner Herzog’s documentary to the recent discovery of new cave paintings in Spain, primitive art is totally in fashion. These newly uncovered 25,000 year-old paintings are thin line drawings of horses and human hands, rendered in a deep red.

“Paintings depicting horses and human hands made by prehistoric humans around 25,000 years ago have been discovered in a cave in northern Spain,” reports Reuters, with the accompaniment of the photo at top. The new paintings were made around the same time as Spain’s famous Altamira cave paintings, though they seem to be more deteriorated than those at Altamira.

Will this fascination with cave paintings never stop!? Sure, they are the earliest example of cultural expression in the human race, and I guess they’re pretty and stuff. Picasso totally loved them, via a possibly apocryphal quote that everything after Altamira is “decadence.” Werner Herzog’s 2010 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams explores France’s Chauvet Cave, giving viewers another view of these early art works. The film is currently on view in New York City if you’re looking for a chance to get up close and personal with our ancestral art.

Archaeologists are planning to keep exploring these newly discovered caves for evidence of habitation, utensils or tools. For all those artists out there, I suggest you start taking a look at these images as source material. Clearly, everyone just loves finger painting.