Cavemen may've been more artsy-fartsy than we thought

Calling someone a Neanderthal might not be an insult for long. Tests show that our grunting ancestors might have actually been sophisticated artists. Using new techniques, researchers have discovered that the funky handprints and an abstract red dot (OK, maybe not that sophisticated) found in Spanish caves are around 40,800 years old, about 15,000 years older than was previously thought — making it possible that Neanderthals painted them. Some experts aren't buying the Neanderthal artist theory and say these are more likely the home décor ideas of early modern man, who was quite similar to us. "They used art, they used symbols," one says. "They were not like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble."