Ancient human DNA found on cave art for the first time

Research has shown that ancient human DNA can be preserved on cave walls and in rock art for millennia, as discovered in caves across Spain and Portugal. This finding offers new insights into prehistoric humans and raises questions about the involvement of Neanderthals in cave paintings.

“It’s the start of a new era,” states Genevieve von Petzinger from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. “This gives us the potential to meet the actual artists, the individuals who created this art. It’s extraordinary.”

From 2022 to 2025, researchers from the First Art project, which aims to date the earliest cave art, collected samples from 11 caves in Spain and Portugal. These caves contained rock art, primarily graphic designs like triangles, dots, and hand stencils made with red ochre paint—considered the oldest forms of cave drawings. Researchers took small paint shavings or removed a calcite layer formed by water precipitation on cave walls.

Cave art, often created by spitting paint or using hands and fingers, prompted researchers to investigate if any artist DNA had been preserved. While ancient human DNA has long been known to survive in cave floor sediments, this genetic material had not been found on walls until now.

The breakthrough came with the discovery of ancient human DNA in red markings in the Escoural Cave in Portugal, resembling a semicolon.

“That was a happy surprise,” remarks Alba Bossoms Mesa at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. This marks the first instance of ancient human DNA being discovered on cave walls. However, it remains uncertain whether the DNA belongs to the artist or someone who later touched or sneezed on the art.

This discovery paves the way for potentially identifying the creators of these drawings in the future. “It’s as though the cave walls have become the pages of a blank book that, little by little, we will be able to fill with new discoveries,” comments Hipólito Collado Giraldo, an archaeologist with the regional government of Extremadura, Spain.

Further surprise arose when researchers found ancient human DNA in control samples taken from unadorned cave walls. This suggests that cave walls could hold valuable information about ancient human visitors, even in the absence of drawings or artifacts. “We were absolutely astonished,” says Collado Giraldo. This points to cave walls as potential archives of historical data.

The study also demonstrated that the DNA on the Escoural cave walls likely came from direct human contact rather than sediment deposits. When human DNA is found in sediment, it is typically mixed with animal DNA, whereas the Escoural samples were purely human.

The DNA from the cave walls offered insights into the ancient humans who left it. Three samples were mostly female, while one was predominantly male. This genetic profile closely matched a group known as western hunter-gatherers, dating back approximately 5200 to 17,000 years.

Although the DNA samples were insufficient for precise dating, the fact that the Escoural cave was sealed between 4000 and 5000 years ago suggests the DNA predates this period.

This research is just beginning. Earlier this month, First Art researchers, including von Petzinger and Collado Giraldo, conducted extensive sampling in various Spanish caves, such as Nerja and Ardales, which contain possibly Neanderthal-attributed art. “One question I would really love to answer is whether Neanderthals were making art,” says Bossoms Mesa.

Francesco d’Errico from the University of Bordeaux in France, not involved in the study, believes DNA from cave walls could unlock new perspectives on ancient humans and their art. “Were the artists men or women or both? Were animal drawings from the same panel made by a single artist? Can we find Neanderthal DNA in the very old paintings in the Iberian Peninsula or Denisovan DNA in hand stencils found in Indonesia? The potential is huge,” he says.

However, ancient DNA was recovered from only one of the 24 rock art panels sampled, indicating that preservation may be rare. “The success rate is very low right now,” notes Bossoms Mesa, though this might improve as researchers refine their DNA extraction techniques.

Collado Giraldo is enthusiastic about the potential to uncover significant historical information without needing destructive excavations. “Excavation inevitably removes part of the archaeological record,” he explains. “This new discovery offers us the chance to uncover and reconstruct entirely new stories without excavation—stories that will help us better understand the people and societies of the past.”