Mexican anthropologists have discovered some 5,000-year-old cave paintings predating the Maya civilisation on Yucatan peninsula, Spanish news agency EFE reported.

According to Carlos Augusto of the Faculty of Anthropological Sciences at the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, they found some 60 paintings of man-like figures at the Kab cavern situated near the famous Chichen Itza archaeological site. There are also drawings of animal figures, birds or canines, Augusto said.

The cave, made up of tunnels between three and five kilometres long, is a virtual labyrinth eight metres below ground.

He said that the cave 'shows the existence of symbolic thinking in Mesoamerica, when the human groups were still hunters and gatherers', something that he said was of 'extraordinary importance'.