Runs in the Family

Nothing we do is random. There is always some vestigial benefit that allowed for the evolution of an act that gives us either pleasure or pain. Art is an offshoot of those positive feedback reactions.

We have a ”universally inherited propensity to make some objects and activities special”. How long that propensity goes back is a matter of debate.
Art has never been about the end product, just to be mounted on a white wall with soft lighting and hushed voices; the process and the purpose define art.  Ellen Dissanayake elaborates on the concept of art evolving as a defining part of ritual; with the purpose of bonding social groups and communicating complex ideas. Art helps us work out the complex thought processes that characterize our species.  It helps with the expression of these complex ideas and standardizes the views experience when used as an aid.  It is believed that the oldest form of art was utilized in personal adornment (Ellen D.)

Not just a.m. Homo sapiens have been shown with evidence of this personal adornment however. Neanderthal adornment was simplistic compared to a.m. Homo sapiens of the same region.  Gregory Curtis, the author of The Cave Painters, proposes the idea that the Neanderthals were mimicking the Cro-Magnon people. That idea still implies that the Neanderthals had an appreciation for self-adornment, and therefore art itself. If they were able to appreciate art then there must have been a selection for the propensity of art before the evolutionary split of these two Homos.  Southern France has the highest density of cave paintings in Europe; this is also the area with the longest period of overlapping contact between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon (Curtis, 41). They lived together from 35,000-27,500 B.P. (Curtis, 37). Such a long-term overlap would lead to the necessity of interspecies communication between two decently intelligent species.  The physical difference between the two species would make vocal communication difficult if not impossible. Neanderthals vocal tracks to not make the same bend as a.m.Homo sapians consequently the types of vowels produced would be different.  Art would avoid this entire issue while still allowing for interspecies communications.