The oldest rock painting in the world discovered in Indonesia

On the island of Celebes, in Indonesia, a group of archaeologists have made a discovery that amazes the world. Find it the oldest rock painting of humanity known to this day: a life-size image of a boar taken at least 45,500 years ago. It would take about 1,600 years before the works which, until now, were considered to be the oldest.

The discovery, described in the journal Science Advances, offers the first evidence of human settlement in the region.

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Archaeologist Maxime Aubert, from Griffith University in Australia, one of the authors of the article, told the AFP that doctoral student Basran Burhan found the rock painting on the island of Sulawesi in 2017, when an archaeological team conducted explorations with Indonesian authorities in the area.

The discovery was made in Leang Tedongnge Cave, located in a distant valley surrounded by steep limestone cliffs. It is located an hour’s walk from the nearest road and is only accessible during the dry season due to flooding during the rainy season.

Members of the isolated Bugi community said they had never seen him before.

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A warty boar

The cave painting measures 136 centimeters long by 54 high. It represents the Celebes warthog and was painted with a dark red ocher pigment. It has a small crest of hair and a pair of horn-shaped facial warts characteristic of the adult males of the species. There are even two handprints on the animal’s hind legs, which appears to be in front of two other pigs that are only partially preserved, as part of a narrative scene.

Adam Brumm, another of the book’s authors, said that “the pig appears to be observing a fight or social interaction between two other warty pigs.”

Humans have hunted Sulawesi warthogs or wart pigs for tens of thousands of years. These animals are a key presence in the region’s prehistoric artwork, especially during the Ice Age.

Go out together

Aubert, a dating specialist, identified a calcite deposit formed on the top of the painting. He then used isotopic dating from the Uranium series to ensure the deposit was 45,500 years old.

However, the expert said “it could be much older because the dating we use only dates the calcite at the top. The people who did it – he continued – were completely modern, they were like us, they had all the ability and the tools to do any painting they liked ”.

The pig appears to be observing a fight or social interaction between two other warty pigs

The oldest rock painting to date was found by the same team in Sulawesi. He depicted a group of partly human and partly animal figures hunting mammals, and was found to be at least 43,900 years old.

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Cave paintings like these also help fill in the gaps in our understanding of early human migrations. Humans are known to have arrived in Australia 65,000 years ago, but they probably should have passed through the islands of Indonesia, known as “Wallacea”.

This site now represents the oldest human evidence for Wallacea, but further research should help show people were in the area much earlier. In this way Australia’s settlement conundrum would be solved.

The team believe the artwork was made by Homo Sapiens rather than now extinct human species such as the Denisovans, but cannot say for sure.

To make handprints, artists should place them on a surface and then spit pigment on them, so the team will try to extract DNA samples from the residual saliva.