[mikem170]

Maybe rock art is a secondary effect of whatever evolutionary leap brought about language in the human species. Whatever brain mechanisms facilitated that also facilitated cave paintings. The rest can be explained by many independent inventors over tens of thousands of years. Maybe even call these paintings a first attempt at writing, a precursor to hieroglyphics.

[there_the_and]

Indeed. It seems possible that there’s something about the red ochre hand motif is hardwired into human brain and is related to language development. But on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, even if we somehow outgrew it as a species, it seems there would still be residual evidence.

[BrissyCoder]

Here you go: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a2/e4/cb/a2e4cb366c802776412e...