Police are investigating the damage to a 6,000-year-old cave painting in southern Spain. Authorities say the ancient evidence of human creativity was damaged when a local man poured water on it. Why? He wanted to embellish the painting so he could take a photo for his Facebook page.

The paintings are located in the Sierra Sur de Jaén mountains in the Spanish province of Jaén. They are among the oldest in the world and have been declared a World Heritage Site by the UN alongside Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China.

According to a report in the Spanish newspaper El País, police are investigating a 39-year-old man from the neighboring town of Los Villares in connection with the crime. The manhunt began in May when images of the water-soaked cave paintings appeared on the Internet.

People like to take photos of the paintings, which is a completely normal instinct. What is not normal is pouring water over them so that they glitter and shimmer when you take photos. After taking the pictures, the man uploaded them to Facebook and tagged his location. It wasn’t difficult for the authorities to track him down.

Idiots looking to score points on social media are just the latest threat to the ancient cave paintings. In 2022, vandals spray-painted a large Spanish flag over another cave painting nearby. The flag was so large that it could be seen from a nearby road. Something similar happened in Australia (also in 2022) when vandals defaced 3,000-year-old rock paintings.

Vandals are bad, but the inevitable passage of time and climate change are the two biggest threats to this priceless art. As the planet warms and oceans rise, we’re losing access to some of these artistic wonders. It may soon become difficult to even look at them, let alone protect them from idiots who want to capture them forever on social media.

There is a cave in the south of France filled with paintings of prehistoric sea creatures, penguins, seals, fish, barracudas and bears. To get there, you have to dive into the Mediterranean Sea and explore an underwater cave. Sea levels have risen sharply in the last decade and navigation to the cave is becoming increasingly difficult. Worse still, the changing tides are starting to wash away some of the artwork.

Whether it’s social media addicts seeking peace or man-made climate change, humans are the force that is destroying all our artistic endeavors.