It's the Oldest Figurative Cave Art Known to Exist

The oldest figurative cave art in the world has been discovered in Indonesia. Dated to 51,200 years ago, almost 6,000 years older than the previous oldest cave art just 6 miles away, the poor-condition art shows at least three humanlike figures, or human-animal hybrids, with a wild pig, per the Guardian. One figure appears with extended arms holding a rod and another appears to hold a stick, which might be in contact with the pig's throat, according to the Australian and Indonesian researchers. "It is the oldest evidence we have for storytelling," Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Australia's Griffith University, tells the BBC. "It shows that humans at the time had the capacity to think in abstract terms."

story continues below

There are older representations of drawing by humans, such as geometric patterns on stone in South Africa's Blombos Cave, dated to at least 75,000 years ago. But the red pigment painting inside the Leang Karampuang cave in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi, described in a Nature study, is a form of representational art, depicting a real-world subject. It's by far the oldest evidence of humans telling stories "that is known to archaeology," team lead Adhi Agus Oktaviana, an Indonesian rock art specialist from the National Research and Innovation Agency in Jakarta, tells the BBC. It's also the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in the Wallacea region, per ABC Australia.

The painting was originally dated to at least 43,900 years ago, based on the dating of calcium carbonate around the art. It was redated with a more precise method that cuts through layers of calcium carbonate, per ABC. A similar cave painting in the region was redated from 44,000 years to 48,000 years old using the same method, per the Guardian. As more ancient art is redated, Leang Karampuang's art is likely to lose its title as the oldest figurative cave art by humans, experts say. It's likely there are also older examples still out there. "This find reinforces the idea that representational art was first produced in Africa, before 50,000 years ago, and the concept spread as our species spread," says Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum. (More cave paintings stories.)