A team of archaeologists from Griffith University in Australia has announced the discovery of figurative artwork in a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The painting dates back at least 51,000 years, making it the oldest known rock art to date, according to the researchers. This discovery pushes back the date at which modern humans, to our knowledge, first demonstrated their capacity for creative thinking.
This approximately 51,000-year-old artwork features a large red pig accompanied by three people. Although the drawing appears modest and the shapes have flaked off, Professor Maxime Aubert from Griffith University stated: “The painting tells a complex story. It is the oldest piece of storytelling evidence we have. It shows that humans of that time had the ability to think in abstract terms.” For his part, Adam Brumm, co-author of the study (published in the journal Nature), affirmed: “Our discovery suggests that storytelling is a much older part of human history than previously thought.”
A Discovery That Could Rewrite the History of Homo Sapiens’ Cognitive Evolution
In 2019, the same team of archaeologists discovered a painting about 44,000 years old in southern Sulawesi, showing a hunting scene of a Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis). Painted in red ochre, this figure was until now considered the oldest, predating the cave paintings of Chauvet Cave, which date back 36,000 years.
However, Aubert and his team’s latest discovery marks “the first time a work has crossed the 50,000-year threshold,” the archaeologist told AFP. “The fact that early humans were able to tell such a ‘sophisticated’ story through art could rewrite our understanding of human cognitive evolution,” he added.
The research team was led by Adhi Agus Oktaviana, an Indonesian rock art specialist from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in Jakarta. According to him, this narrative painting constitutes a crucial element of the first human culture in Indonesia. “Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,000 years, but since words don’t fossilize, we can only rely on indirect proxies, such as representations of art scenes, and Sulawesi art is by far the oldest evidence of this kind today,” he said.
A New Dating Method
Researchers first noticed this artwork in 2017, but they haven’t been able to pinpoint its creation date until now. However, a new dating method has made this accomplishment possible. This technique relies on lasers and software capable of creating a virtual “map” of rock samples. According to Aubert, this new method is much more precise and, above all, faster compared to previous techniques.
To test the performance of this new process, the team first based their work on the previous discovery: the warty pig hunting scene. By analyzing the layers of minerals agglomerated on the painting, they were stunned: they realized that the latter did not date back 44,000 years, but at least 48,000 years, which is 4,000 years older than estimated with the uranium-series method in 2019.
The researchers then used the same technique for their recent discovery, accessing the layer closest to the painting. They thus determined an age of at least 51,200 years. Looking more closely at the painting, scientists also noticed that the largest figure represents a human with both arms outstretched who seems to be holding a spear. The second is in front of the pig and also seems to be holding a stick, one end of which could be in contact with the pig’s throat. The last human silhouette appears to be upside down, with legs turned upwards and spread outwards. “We don’t know exactly what they’re doing,” Aubert admitted. The archaeologist also hypothesized that this work was probably created by the first group of humans who crossed Southeast Asia before reaching Australia 65,000 years ago.
Cave Paintings: The Mystery Deepens
The Blombos caves in southern Africa are home to the first human-made drawings, which date back approximately 100,000 years. However, these are simple lines and geometric patterns made with ochre. Moreover, between these drawings and the new “painting” discovered in the limestone cave of Leang Karampuang featuring figurative art, there is a “huge gap,” according to the team of archaeologists. According to them, this gap could represent the evolution of Homo sapiens’ thought processes, thus giving rise to art. However, according to Dr. Henry Gee, the question is: what triggered this awakening?
The 40,000-year-old ivory sculpture of a man with a lion’s head in Germany is believed to have been the first narrative to emerge from Western Europe prior to these discoveries. However, rock art appears to be much older than it seems. Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, confirms this. “In my opinion, this discovery reinforces the idea that figurative art was first produced in Africa 50,000 years ago and that the concept spread as our species spread,” he stated. “It’s probably only a matter of time before we find older samples,” Aubert concludes.
