New discovery! 51,200-year-old figurative rock art in Sulawesi, Indonesia

A team of scientists co-led by researchers from Australia’s Griffith University, the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) and Southern Cross University has discovered and dated a cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi that may be the oldest known evidence of storytelling in art, with the findings published in the journal Nature.

The painting, located in the limestone cave of Leang Karampuang in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi, portrays three human-like figures interacting with a wild pig.

To determine its age, the team applied a novel method of laser ablation U-series (LA-U-series) analysis, to date tiny layers of calcium carbonate that had formed on top of the art.

The results revealed the underlying artwork was painted at least 51,200 years ago, making it the oldest known reliably dated cave art image in the world, and the earliest narrative art found anywhere.

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Griffith University | CRICOS: 00233E | TEQSA: PRV12076

[hf]

Indonesia has so many ancient sites and megalithic sites.

[xanderunderwoods]

I'm certain human art is much older that 51, 200 years, but the weathering of time has earased the evidence. Really puts things in perspective.

[_Ben___]

It's likely that we were doing rock paintings further back than any evidence of rock paintings can survive.

[tristanhalbert]

While this may be the oldest figurative cave art, it is not the oldest painting.

I poked around a little, and the oldest paintings belong to Neanderthals, red hand stencils in Europe, either France or Spain, 64, 000 - 66, 000 years ago, and the oldest drawings are from South Africa, some etchings of geometric shapes, at around 75, 000 years.

It may well be the oldest figurative art, I didn't happen to see any older examples, but then- that's a worthy distinction, is it not?

Edit: the young earth creationists have moved into the replies, proceed with caution.

Edit again, thank you to bobmusil5813 for explaining that for some ungodly reason I have to sort by newest first in order to see my own replies to my own comment. Very cool of youtube to do that, very kind of Bob to explain this to me.

Edit again: Every time someone cries about how many edits are made to this comment, I will make another.

Another Edit: I was not expecting people to WANT edits, but that's cool too, no big deal, making em ain't a problem for me. LOOKIT ME GO,

[George-phqo]

If the build up of minerals over cave paintings is like this then how many older civilizations' art is buried under such mineral buildups

[VikasSingh-vefp]

So this is newest discovery of the oldest stone age cave painting from Sulawesi, Indonesia about 51200 years old. Till now, the World's oldest stone age paintings of Bhimbetka rock shelters, Madhya Pradesh, India are estimated to be around 30, 000 years old and still very clear on the stones. Great discoveries are about to come like this and we will feel amazed and proud about that.

[reillycurran]

It's not that surprising when you consider how many cultures had stories about the Pleiades being a set of seven siblings who lose one of the siblings.

There are six stars in the Pleiades, the only way for those stories to be so consistent across cultures would be if a seventh star was there and vanished to the naked eye.

Recently that star was found, having moved so close to one of the other Pleiades relative to earth's vantage that it would appear to have vanished.

That star would have last been distinguishable to the naked eye around 100k years ago. Human language and storytelling are far older than many people ever consider. There is no language family alive today which dates back more than 15k years ago, this story has survived across so many cultures for so long that it most certainly transited several now extinct entire language families. It has passed down linguistic generations in tongues we could never hope to even reconstruct because not only are they dead, but the daughter languages they spun into have also since gone extinct.

Stories are truly our most eldritch creation as a race. They outlive us in ways we could never hope to comprehend on our own.

[notgaybear]

Discovered in 2014 by Maxime Aubert and team

[farhanfakhriza]

The Indonesian archipelago was connected to mainland asia and Australia, separated only 10, 000 years ago when the last ice age ended. During thousands of years of ice age southeast asia was probably the warmest and fertile land. There had to be ancient civilizations there that ended with the rise of sea level 10k years ago.

[ganjisuresh]

In India there are so many caves with prehistoric paintings dating back to 60000 years like Bhim Betka etc.

[Death__]

Indian Sub-continent has much to provide in terns of History, afterall in last 4000 years, India & Chinese were flourishing.
Unfortunately, they don't seem to invest in Archaeological research that much. I understand why & I hope in future when the whole region is doing better they start focusing on researching history as well.

[askwhyz]

99.9% of human history we still have no idea wtf happened. Kudos to those researchers traveling to far-off locales with high-tech equipment to help us piece together the mystery of human migration and the cultures that preceded us!

[mannygutierrez]

Crazy, because this is so far back in time we will never know these people's language, what they looked like, or how they lived

[chrisregister]

If they were drawn pigs 52000 years ago, they started drawing a long long time before that...

[csabapeterman-nagy]

It seems the origin of the redbull brand is Way more ancient Than we thought.

[NandoValenzuela]

India is one of the most interesting places and I know there's some amazing discoveries from the very old ancient times. There are structures there we still haven't a clue how they were constructed, things we can't even do today.

[telebubba]

Fascinating subject. I have always thought that a lot has been very conservatively dated and was in truth much older. Time has shown me to be right on that and this only confirms it again. This is only about the stuff that has been found, how much more is there yet to be found? It seems to me that there must be even older paintings, because this is quite sophisticated already. Sadly I fear that a lot of it already has been 'destroyed' either by nature or by humans who didn't realise what they were looking at.

[travistackett]

The story of humanity is far deeper and more misunderstood than we can imagine, I just wish that everyone with a rational argument can be heard and not shut down by the mainstream yes men, like the Egyptian Antiquities guy that inevitably find things that he takes credit for at the cost of others!

[williamhensley]

We all know this was not the first one.

[angrytedtalks]

So homo sapiens left Africa 55, 000 years ago, took 4, 000 years to get to Indonesia, but nobody went into Europe which was far closer? Highly unlikely.