the.com/cave painting

means A drawing or painting made by prehistoric people on the walls or ceilings of a cave, usually depicting animals, hunts, hands, or abstract marks.

from The phrase itself is a plain compound, English doing what English does — 'cave' from Latin cavea/cavus meaning hollow, and 'painting' from Latin pingere, to paint or depict. No trick etymology here; the real story is in the caves themselves, like Lascaux and Chauvet in France, discovered in the 20th century and radically pushing back how long humans have been making images. The term entered common use alongside these discoveries, as archaeologists needed a plain label for art older than writing itself.