“Scientists have long been fascinated by prehistoric cave art, which offers a rare glimpse into the creative minds of our ancestors. Now, they might finally be able to ‘meet’ some of the artists who created these masterpieces thousands of years ago.

Traces of ancient DNA from humans can survive for millennia on cave walls and in rock art, scientists report in a new paper published in June in the journal Nature Communications.

In the past, scientists have extracted ancient DNA from cave dirt, chewing ‘gum’ and a 20,000-year-old pendant. But no one had recovered it from rock art, until now.

‘It’s the start of a new era,’ study co-author Genevieve von Petzinger, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, tells NewScientist’s Alison George. ‘This gives us the potential to meet the actual artists, the individuals who did this art. It’s extraordinary.'”

From Smithsonian Magazine.