<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 most ancient examples of art found in caves throughout europe served to
show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet : 35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago