Tristan Hughes

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50,000 years ago, in a cave nestled high up in a hill in what is today northern Spain, a group of Ice Age hunters gather for a special purpose.

Firelight illuminates the cave wall in front of them as they begin their work.

Mixing their saliva with rich red ochre, they artfully blow this prehistoric paint over the vertical rock's surface, creating a line of bright red discs.

Markings filled with meaning.

Next, they place their hands on the wall and do the same again, creating striking red outlines.

Handprints that will remain there for the next 50,000 years.

Today, those markings have become the legacy of those Ice Age painters.

But those painters, they weren't modern humans.

They weren't Homo sapiens.

They were Neanderthals.

And they were leaving behind some of the oldest known art in Europe.

So what do we know about this archaic art?