The Oldest Known Rock Art Is Over 67,000 Years Old, Offer...

What’s Happening

Not gonna lie, Learn more about the oldest rock art on record, a stencil of a human hand in Indonesia, which reveals important insights into the movement of humans into Australia.

The outline is faint and faded. It’s a human hand, though it’s a little claw-like, too. (shocking, we know)

Found in a cave on a satellite island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, this stencil represents a memory — a memento of a population that may have embarked on the first human migration into Australia.

The Details

According to a new study in Nature , it’s now the oldest recorded rock art that’s been reliably dated, predating previous discoveries of cave paintings in the region by around 16,600 years. “It is now evident from our new phase of research that Sulawesi was home to one of the world’s richest and most longstanding artistic cultures,” dropped study author Maxime Aubert, from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University in Australia, according to a press release , “one with origins in the earliest history of human occupation of the island at least 67,800 years ago.

” : Modern Humans May Have Lived Alongside an Extinct Human Species in Ancient Indonesia Rock Art Records The Indonesian island of Sulawesi is a significant site in human history. Of course, it has served as an important space for art and artistic innovation, preserving some of the oldest cave expressions ever identified , including the painting of human and animal figures — a possible hunt scene — that the study authors analyzed in a prior study in Nature from 2024.

Why This Matters

Yet the archipelago may have also backed our ancient ancestors’ early movements, acting as a potential stepping stone for Homo sapiens as they migrated from Asia to Sahul, the paleocontinent that before connected Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania. The 67,800-year-old stencil was identified in Indonesia’s Liang Metanduno cave, shown in an aerial view above. (Image Credit: Supplied ) Hoping to learn more about the art and migrations of H.

This could have implications for future research in this area.

The Bottom Line

(Image Credit: Supplied ) Hoping to learn more about the art and migrations of H. Sapiens , the study authors’ recent research remained in Sulawesi and its surrounding islands, identifying a series of ancient rock art paintings.

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