The National Geographic Society has awarded 35,000 euros for the project "U-series dating of Palaeolithic cave paintings in Europe - in search of Europe's oldest art". Dirk Hoffmann, a researcher at the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) is the principal investigator of this project whose aim is to improve the dating of cave paintings in Europe using the uranium series method in order to better understand Paleolithic human populations.

The project will begin in April and will last one year. The project team will focus on Paleolithic cave paintings in northern and southern Spain as well as in France and Italy. Together with Dirk Hoffmann, relevant scientists such as Alistair Pike (University of Southampton), Marcos Garcia (University of the Basque Country) and Joao Zilhao (ICREA, Barcelona University) will be part of the team.