World's Oldest Cave Art Discovered in Indonesia
Australian and Indonesian researchers have discovered what is thought to be the oldest known figurative art painting, dating back at least 51K years — over 5K years older than the previous oldest cave art....
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Facts
- Australian and Indonesian researchers have discovered what is thought to be the oldest known figurative art painting, dating back at least 51K years — over 5K years older than the previous oldest cave art.1
- Found in the Leang Karampuang cave in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi, the 36-inch by 15-inch artwork depicts three human-like figures surrounding a large warty pig in a single dark red color.2
- According to Prof. Adam Brumm, co-author of the study published in Nature on Wednesday, the discovery is 'the oldest evidence for a narrative story in the history of art so far.'3
- To accurately determine the painting's minimum age, the researchers used a new technique to date a type of crystal known as calcium carbonate, which had formed naturally on the painted figures.4
- Humans reached Australia 60K to 65K years ago, and the narrative cave art, along with a hunting scene discovered in a nearby cave in 2019, is at least 10K years older than the oldest European rock art.5
- Earlier discoveries of cave paintings on Sulawesi were dated to be between 40K and 44K years old, the oldest cave art found at the time. Many of the over 300 cave and shelter artworks preserved in the area haven't yet been closely analyzed.6
Sources: 1BBC News, 2Al Jazeera, 3Yahoo News, 4The Artnewspaper, 5New Scientist and 6Washington Post.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by EL PAÍS English. The discovered cave art is the latest evidence that modern humans developed advanced mental abilities much earlier than previously thought. Archaeology has been very Eurocentric, but new and unbiased research methods now prove that even figurative art didn't originate in Europe. Deciphering the past is the key to understanding the present and shaping the future, and further archeological discoveries are waiting to change our understanding of human history.
- Narrative B, as provided by Dw.Com. Such discoveries are fascinating and the result of rigorous archaeological work employing modern technology and more accurate dating techniques. However, the involved scientists provided no proof of their claim of having found the oldest depiction of narrative art in Indonesia, and to this day, the oldest cave art is found in Spain. Wishful thinking isn't science, and more research is needed to unravel the rich human culture of storytelling and the evolution of the human mind.
