Interesting - the mention of Neanderthals had me puzzled, so I checked about Altamira, and yes, there is a theory that it was Neanderthals, not homo sapiens, that created (some? or all? of)the works.
a good friend of mine, Bruce Rimmell, had been contributing articles to my website, among them discussing that subject, for example:
New dating that pushed the dates of these paintings further back, Bruce quotes:
“Anatomically modern humans arrived in western Europe around 41,500 years ago and thus may well have made the ancient Spanish paintings. But 42,000 years ago the only humans in Europe were Neanderthals... [Thus] any art there that turns out to be older than 42,000 years must necessarily be attributed to Neanderthals. [Pike & Zilhão] suspect that the red disks and hand stencils at El Castillo might well be Neanderthal paintings, considering that the uranium-thorium dating results are minimum estimates...”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Altamira#Dating_and_periodization
Neanderthals are often though of being more primitive as homo sapiens, but that may not be true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal
https://www.visionaryartexhibition.com/archaic-visions/el-castillo-formative-images-from-the-upper-palaeolithic
Thank You so much for your interest in this theme. It's very valuable!
this is easy to discern when one looks at the subject matter, such as hunting. It certainly resembles the type of magic of today's nature people (such as Australian Aborigines).also consider this: most cave paintings are in inaccessible places (not at the front, where they lived), but deep inside the cave. These were most likely done by shamans - called Sympathetic Magic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic#Hypotheses_about_prehistoric_sympathetic_magic