You can go back thousands of years, 20 or 25 thousand years since the beginning of cave painting. Earliest paintings were all first drawn by the artistic Neanderthals. They even dabbed ochre spots on cave walls, to represent stars in the sky. Beads and stones were decorated by Neanderthals living in south african caves.
Current evidence says
(a) Neanderthals never lived in South Africa (or any other part of Africa)
(b) They became extinct by 30,000 BCE -
Edit: Well, not exactly, it seems:"A study in Nature magazine suggests the species may have lived in Gorham's Cave on Gibraltar up to 24,000 years ago...But evidence for a presence 24,000 years ago is limited, so the researchers can only say with confidence that Neanderthals were in the cave until 28,000 years ago."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5343266.stm (2006)
Mike, from your link:
"Wheston Price also made the identification of 10 painted dots on a Neanderthal cave painting with the Pleiades...His idea that the Pleiades were depicted in the Lascaux cave..."
Yet the Lascaux cave paintings date back only 17,000 yrs, right? What have I missed?
