Paul Pettitt gave a talk at a conference over the weekend and was willing to speculate that some of the earliest phases of cave art could have been made by Neanderthals.
Nicholas Humphreys had a paper a good few years ago comparing some cave paintings with those done by non-verbal people with autism or degenerative brain diseases that resulted in loss of language. He put forward the proposition that the paintings were likely to have been created by pre-modern minds who were more accomplished with visual communication than verbal which could put Neanderthals in the picture (presuming they were non-verbal visual thinkers, which may be completely false). The claim was highly controversial though, and heavily criticised by Bahn, amongst others.

I’m probably missing the obvious but how does the assumed demise of the Neanderthals equate with the end of the last (severe) ice age (in Britain). Neither seem to be clearly defined and we don't even seem to know for sure how far the last ice sheet stretched into southern Britain, how long Neanderthals might have lingered on there and perhaps interbred with Homo sapiens.

Just what might have been their legacy in the megalithic building arena – is it really that far-fetched to think that they were incapable of hauling big stones into a circle? They seem to be pretty good at other stone-working techniques so why not circles. And how old are our oldest circles – does anyone know? Does anyone know which are our oldest circles?