the oldest known cave paintings are in the chauvet cave in france. there are two groups of paintings in this cave. the first group was painted 33,000 to 30,000 years ago. the second group was done 26,000 to 27,000 years ago.p546 we know this because scientists did radiocarbon dating of "black from drawings, from torch marks and from the floors". by 1999, scientists had dated 31 samples from the cave. the oldest were from 33,390-32,410 years ago.