jan 1, 35000 BC - 35,000 BCE - Abri Castanet Engravings on an ochre-stained block of limestone The engraved circle symbols, thought to represent female genitalia Vezere valley in the Dordogne region of southwestern France

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Quote from Cork Uni (link below)

In 2007, archeologists who were examining part of the collapsed roof of the Abri Castanet rock shelter in the Commune de Sergeac, Dordogne, discovered a cache of rock engravings and abstract signs on an ochre-stained block of limestone. The engraved circle symbols, thought to represent female genitalia, have been dated to about 35,000 BCE, ranking them alongside the oldest Franco-Cantabrian cave art of the region. Only the El Castillo cave paintings (c.39,000 BCE) and the Altamira cave paintings (c.34,000 BCE) come close, while the more sophisticated Chauvet cave paintings (c.30,000 BCE) are some 5,000 years younger. At any rate, it now seems that Abri Castanet is home to the earliest art in France, and this discovery underlines the creative capacity of anatomically modern man during the early era of Aurignacian art (40,000-25,000 BCE). Compare the alleged Neanderthal crosshatch rock engraving at Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar (37,000 BCE).

For a comparison with early African art, see the painted animal images on the Apollo 11 Cave Stones (c.25,500 BCE). For contemporaneous work in SE Asia, please see: Sulawesi Cave Art (Indonesia) (c.37,900 BCE).

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