The oldest representation of a man interacting with an animal dates back to 23,000 BC.
This animal is none other than a bull.
This image is found in Dordogne (France) on the walls of the Villars cave.
The prehistoric man is facing the bull. He holds an object in his hands. A decoy or perhaps a weapon. Could this first “encounter” be a bullfighting representation?
This is the interpretation proposed by the prehistorian Leroi-Gourhan, the historian Georges Charrière and André Viard, president of the ONCT.
This “first contact” can be completed by two other images, similar in time and space. In the caves of Roc de Sers (19000 BC) and in Lascaux (17000 BC).
“A man charged by a buffalo” at Villars
“The man chased by a buffalo” at the Roc de Sers
“The man gored by a buffalo” at Lascaux.
Sources:
Issue no. 50 of April 2014, of the magazine "TERRES TAURINES"
ONCT website: http://www.culturestaurines.com/tauromachies%20pari%C3%A9tales
Georges Charrière, in 1968 in “La revue de l'histoire des religions” n°174-1, published by the Collège de France