Neanderthals may have been cave-painting artists, according to research published on Thursday that details a new method of analyzing cave paintings in Spain and claims they are the oldest in the world.

The tests on 50 paintings in 11 caves in northern Spain, described in the US journal Science, hint at a previously unknown talent that may have been possessed by Neanderthals in Europe more than 40,000 years ago.

There has never been any proof that Neanderthals produced cave art, but they did bury their dead, used some primitive decorative techniques on their bodies and left behind pendants made of bones and shells, experts said.