Uranium dating fingers Neanderthals as artists - Palaeolithic cave art is one of the earliest indicators of human culture, but dating the art and, therefore, putting it in context has been difficult. Now, a team led by Alistair Pike of the University of Bristol, UK, has used uranium-thorium dating to analyse the art found in 11 caves in the north of Spain. Their findings suggest that the art was made by the very earliest humans 40,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals still occupied the area. Reference: A. Pike et al, 'U-Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain, Science 15 June 2012: Vol. 336 no. 6087 pp. 1409-1413 DOI: 10.1126/science.1219957