Likely by at least 440,000 years ago with the Neanderthal-Sapiens last common ancestor. By this time, we’ve seen many creative examples of manipulating environments. From creatively controlling fire to building sophisticated huts, ancient humans were creative. They even left us a bit of their art.
We see cave paintings and rock art in Spain that date back to around 65,000 years ago. Homo sapiens reached Spain about 42,000 to 44,000 years ago. The likely artists for these ancient paintings are Neanderthals, who were in Spain by at least 200,000 years ago. Although less likely, it is worth noting that Homo heidelbergensis was in Spain by around 600,000 years ago, Homo antecessor by about 900,000 years ago, and Homo erectus was present over a million years ago.
The art in Spain attributed to Neanderthals is estimated to be around 65,000 years old. This dating was determined through uranium-thorium dating of calcite deposits that had formed over the art, located in several caves in Spain, including La Pasiega, Maltravieso, and Ardales. These caves feature abstract symbols like lines, dots, and hand stencils and are considered some of the oldest known examples of cave art in the world. The age of these artworks suggests that Neanderthals, who lived in Europe long before Homo sapiens arrived, had the capacity for symbolic thought.