The oldest rock painting found in Indonesia …

The the oldest figurative cave painting in the world is the image of a warty pig painted 45,500 years ago. It was discovered in a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi by a group of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists

“As far as we know, the painting of the Sulawesi pig that we found in the limestone cave of Leang Tedongnge it is currently the oldest figurative artistic work in the world, ”said Adam Brumm, one of the leaders of the scientific team at Griffith University and the Indonesian archaeological research center ARKENAS, in a statement .

So far, the figurative cave painting considered to be the oldest in the world was the one discovered in 2020 on the same island that depicts an abstract hunting scene from 43,900 years ago. It had also been discovered by Brumm’s team and has the particularity of representing abstract beings combining human and animal characteristics, called “therianthropes”, which hunt large mammals with spears and ropes. According to the expert, this could be the oldest proof of the human capacity to imagine “the existence of supernatural beings, the cornerstone of the religious experience”.

The discovered painting is now hidden in one of the inner walls of the cave Leang Tedongnge, located in a valley surrounded by steep limestone cliffs in the south of the island of Sulawesi. It’s a place where only accessible during the dry season through a small passage which remains flooded during the rainy season.

The inhabitants of the Bugis ethnic group assured that apart from them, no one else had entered the cave until the arrival of this team of archaeologists in 2017.

The warty pig, inspiration for the Ice Age

It is endemic pig of Indonesian island It appears in the depiction with a red ridge of erect hairs and a pair of facial warts in front of the eyes, a feature characteristic of adult specimens.

Brumm, an archaeologist at the Australian University of Griffith, pointed out that “painted with ocher red pigment, the pig appears to be observing a fight or social interaction between two other warty pigs. The study by the team of researchers he leads was published in the scientific journal Science Advances.

These Warty pigs have been represented for thousands of years by the ancient inhabitants of the region, especially during the Ice Age. The archaeologist interpreted this to suggest that they were not only a source of food but also an artistic expression.

How the age of the painting was determined

To determine the age of Leang Tedongnge’s rock painting, scientists relied on the measurement of radioactive degradation of uranium in carbonate calcium deposits which formed on the surface of the rocky “canvas” used to shape this pig.

“At Leag Tedongnge, a kind of rocky ‘popcorn’ formed behind one of the legs of the pig image after it was painted, which allowed us to determine the minimum age of the painting,” said explained another of the team leaders, Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University.

Wallacea hides more secrets

In addition to the image of this 45,500-year-old pig, scientists another similar painting dating back 32,000 years was discovered in a nearby cave, which is in addition to that of 43,900 years, considered so far as the oldest.

The rock paintings of Sulawesi are among the oldest evidence of the presence of modern humans on the oceanic islands between Asia and Australia-New Guinea, an area known as “Wallacea”.

“Our species must have crossed Wallacea by boat to reach Australia around 65,000 years ago,” Aubert said, noting that future work could show archaeological evidence from this time or even before.