Is that true? I think for it to he true we'd have to overly abstract the definition of technology to the point of uselessness.

You can draw images in the sand. Is a stick "technology"? What about using your finger?

Do we need paints? There are natural dyes. I don't mean in the sense of extracting things but some are as simple as "smash this berry". I believe the answer to this is rather critical since you specifically mention cave paintings. Many of those were done by hand, not by brush.

What about things like rock balancing? Sand sculptures? Singing/vocal instruments? Poetry (spoken, not written)? Story telling (ditto)? And so on

There is so much we consider art that can be done by any human with no tool use nor any external objects. I won't even mention how people call a sunset a work of art, and I do think we should avoid that as it has the same problem I bring up with defining technology. But I do not think most people would consider speech or vocal sounds technology, though certainly we would include things like writing.