Prehistoric cave dwellers hunted the large mammals of their environment and paint murals of these hunting scenes.
Remember, the simple past can refer to an action that happened once in the past, but it also can refer to an action that happened routinely over a peroid of time. (I went to school in 97. When I lived in Detroit, I shopped at Wal-Mart)
In this case, 'hunted mammals' refers not to a specific instance of hunting mammals, but to a routine of hunting mammals that we can only presume lasted generations. Simultaneous to the routine (not, as you pointed out, the literal act), they were painting those animals, so the past continuous is correct.
I think there is a flaw in the reasoning here; the original sentence is connecting the two activities of hunting and painting when it mentions "of these hunting scenes"
If you consider the
routine argument, then by this logic both activities should be in simple past tense i.e. "hunted" and "painted"
I think the grammar of this sentence is incorrectly being guided by the implied meaning of the phrase "
prehistoric cavemen", if we consider this phrase to be the noun or subject of the sentence then this sentence construction is similar to:
Mac hunted animals, painting their pictures. which is ridiculous!
It should be:
Mac hunted animals and painted their pictures!
Please correct me if I am wrong
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