Oldest representative cave painting discovered

According to the researchers, the painting shows three humanoid figures interacting with a wild boar. The painting is located in the Maros Pangkep Karst area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“The results suggest that both the depiction of human-like figures and animals and the use of composed scenes in art have older origins in human history than previously thought,” the report said.

Another rock painting depicting a hunting scene could also be re-dated and is, according to the results, at least 48,000 years old – and thus 4,000 years older than previously thought. The research was published in the journal ‘Nature’.

Prehistoric rock art provides important information about early human cultures, but it is not easy to determine the age of these images accurately and reliably. A team led by archaeologists Adhi Agus Oktaviana and Maxime Aubert from Griffith University in Australia has now succeeded in doing so by using an alternative form of uranium-thorium dating, a special type of radiometric dating. To do this, the scientists worked with special laser technology.

It is generally assumed that representational art has a much more recent origin. This raises questions about the research: the results imply that a rich culture of visual storytelling existed on Sulawesi early in the history of Homo sapiens, especially regarding the relationship between humans and animals, the researchers write. In Europe, such representations did not emerge until tens of thousands of years later.

Sulawesi is located east of Borneo and is popular with tourists from all over the world for its volcanoes, coral reefs and diving sites. The karst area Maros Pangkep is located – about 50 kilometers north of the capital Makassar – in the Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park. The spectacular rock paintings in the caves were discovered in the 1950s.