<P> The earliest known cave paintings / drawings of animals are at least 35,000 years old and were found in caves in the district of Maros, located in Bantimurung district, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, according to datings announced in 2014 . Previously it was believed that the earliest paintings were in Europe . The earliest figurative paintings in Europe date back to the Aurignacian period, approximately 30,000 to 32,000 years ago, and are found in the Chauvet Cave in France, and in the Coliboaia Cave in Romania . The earliest non-figurative rock art dates back to approximately 40,000 years ago, the date given both to a disk in the El Castillo cave and a hand stencil in Timpuseng cave Sulawesi, Indonesia . There are similar later paintings in Africa, Australia and South America, continuing until recent times in some places, though there is a worldwide tendency for open air rock art to succeed paintings deep in caves . </P> <P> Nearly 340 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times . Initially, the age of the paintings had been a contentious issue, since methods like radiocarbon dating can produce misleading results if contaminated by samples of older or newer material, and caves and rocky overhangs (where parietal art is found) are typically littered with debris from many time periods . But subsequent technology has made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself and the torch marks on the walls . The choice of subject matter can also indicate chronology . For instance, the reindeer depicted in the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas places the drawings in the last Ice Age . </P> <P> The oldest date given to an animal cave painting is now a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old at Timpuseng cave in Sulawesi, an Indonesian island . Indonesian and Australian scientists have dated other non-figurative paintings on the walls to be approximately 40,000 years old . The method they used to confirm this was dating the age of the stalactites that formed over the top of the paintings . The art is similar in style and method to that of the Indonesian caves as there were also hand stencils and disks made by blowing paint onto the walls . Cave paintings in El Castillo cave were found to date back to at least 37,300 years old by researchers at Bristol University, making them the oldest known cave art in Europe, 5--10,000 years older than previous examples from France . This date coincides with the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens in Europe . Because of the cave art's age, some scientists have conjectured that the paintings may have been made by Neanderthals . </P> <P> The earliest known European figurative cave paintings are those of Chauvet Cave in France . These paintings date to earlier than 30,000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic) according to radiocarbon dating . Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era and question this age . However, more than 80 radiocarbon dates had been obtained by 2011, with samples taken from torch marks and from the paintings themselves, as well as from animal bones and charcoal found on the cave floor . The radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet: 35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago . One of the surprises was that many of the paintings were modified repeatedly over thousands of years, possibly explaining the confusion about finer paintings that seemed to date earlier than cruder ones . In 2009, cavers discovered drawings in Coliboaia Cave in Romania, stylistically comparable to those at Chauvet . An initial dating puts the age of an image in the same range as Chauvet: about 32,000 years old . </P>

The oldest expression in art is found in caves in the south of what country