We humans had knowledge of astronomy 40,000 years ago

London: Some of the world's oldest cave paintings, found at sites across Europe, reveal that human ancestors may have had an advanced knowledge of astronomy as far back as 40,000 years ago, a study has found.

The animal symbols in the artwork represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to represent dates and mark events such as comet strikes, according to researchers from University of Edinburgh in the UK.

They reveal that, perhaps as far back as 40,000 years ago, humans kept track of time using knowledge of how the position of the stars slowly changes over thousands of years.

The study, published in Athens Journal of History, suggests that ancient people understood an effect caused by the gradual shift of Earth's rotational axis.

Discovery of this phenomenon, called precession of the equinoxes, was previously credited to the ancient

Greeks.

Around the time that Neanderthals became extinct, and perhaps before humankind settled in Western Europe, people could define dates to within 250 years.