These results suggest that the image may contain elements created at very different times. Rather than being the work of a single artist during one visit, the mask may preserve multiple episodes of artistic activity separated by thousands of years.

That possibility offers a more layered picture of prehistoric cave art. Decorated caves may not always have been completed during a single period. Some could have remained meaningful places that later communities revisited, modified, or reinterpreted.

Basically, a prehistoric Sistine Chapel, and artists added to it over the millennia.