World’s oldest cave art discovered in Indonesia’s Muna island

Indonesia and the surrounding portion is known for immoderate of the world’s astir past archaeological finds.

Archaeologists person recovered that handprints stencilled connected limestone caves connected the Indonesian land of Muna could beryllium up to 67,800 years old, making them the oldest known paintings successful the world.

The tan-coloured drawings analysed by Indonesian and Australian researchers were made by blowing pigment implicit hands placed against the cave walls, leaving an outline, scientists said connected Wednesday.

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According to the Jakarta Post quality outlet, archaeologist Adhi Agus Oktaviana from Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has been looking for manus stencils successful the Muna land region, successful Sulawesi province, since 2015.

Adhi recovered the manus stencils, which person present been dated, nether newer paintings successful the cave of a idiosyncratic riding a equine alongside a chicken.

At first, Adhi said it was hard to beryllium to his co-researchers that the stencils were hands arsenic helium believed, but helium “finally recovered immoderate spots that looked similar quality fingers”.

Some of the fingertips were besides tweaked to look much pointed.

“The oldest manus stencil described present is distinctive due to the fact that it belongs to a benignant recovered lone successful Sulawesi,” said Maxime Aubert, a specializer successful archaeological subject astatine Griffith University successful Australia who helped pb the probe published connected Wednesday successful the diary Nature.

“The tips of the fingers were cautiously reshaped to marque them look pointed,” Aubert said.

Aubert’s co-author, Adam Brumm, who is besides an archaeologist astatine Griffith University, said it appeared the radical who painted the hands whitethorn person been trying to picture thing else.

This representation provided by Maxime Aubert shows cave drawings successful Sulawesi province, Indonesia, of a quality fig and a vertebrate with a faded handprint successful betwixt them [Maxime Aubert/AP Photo]

“It was astir arsenic if they were deliberately trying to alteration this representation of a quality manus into thing other – an carnal claw perhaps,” said Brumm.

“Clearly, they had immoderate deeper taste meaning, but we don’t cognize what that was. I fishy it was thing to bash with these past peoples’ analyzable symbolic narration with the carnal world,” helium said.

The researchers determined the minimum property of the representation by analysing tiny amounts of the constituent uranium successful mineral layers that gradually formed atop the pigment.

After taking five-millimetre samples of tiny clusters of calcite that formed connected the walls of the limestone caves, the researchers past zapped the layers of stone with a laser to measurement however the uranium decayed implicit time, compared to a much unchangeable radioactive constituent called thorium.

This “very precise” method gave the scientists a wide minimum property for the painting, Aubert said.

The scientists besides established that the Muna caves had been utilized for stone creation galore times implicit a agelong period. Some of the past creation was adjacent painted implicit up to 35,000 years later, Aubert said.

The caller find is besides much than 15,000 years older than the previous art recovered successful the Sulawesi portion by the aforesaid squad successful 2024.

The portion surrounding Indonesia is known for immoderate of the world’s astir past archaeological finds, alongside neighbouring East Timor and Australia.

Adhi said the cave creation provides caller grounds supporting the mentation that determination was aboriginal quality migration done Sulawesi.

“It besides shows that our ancestors were not lone large sailors,” Adhi said, according to the Jakarta Post, “but besides artists.”

Aboriginal radical surviving successful Australia person 1 of the oldest continuous surviving cultures connected earth, arsenic documented by archaeological grounds dating backmost astatine slightest 60,000 years.

At Murujuga successful northwestern Australia, an estimated 1 cardinal petroglyphs – past images successful caves – including stone carvings, perchance dating backmost arsenic acold arsenic 50,000 years, were recently added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.