Summary:The recent discovery of the first Palaeolithic art object from China is discussed in the context of relevant Chinese and other Asian evidence, and considered within the framework of current models of very early art evolution as they pertain to Eurasia. It appears that these are biased in favour of selective evidence from western Europe, by ignoring that in most regions where Pleistocene art exists it is largely, if not entirely, non‐figurative. It is also argued that any present distributional, statistical and compositional characteristics of the surviving evidence must not be considered to have cultural significance, unless there is clear evidence to that effec