The Sulawesi Cave paintings in Indonesia were discovered in the 1950's but the ancient rock art composed of images of human hand stencils and depictions of wild animals was believed to be no older than 10,000 years old.
Scientists thought that paintings older than this could not survive in a tropical environment. Indonesia, along with neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, are characterized by hot and humid climate but a new study suggests that the Sulawesi cave art may have existed at least 39,900 years ago, which makes it as old as the 40,800-year-old cave art discovered in the El Castillo cave in Spain, the oldest known cave painting.
For the study published in the journal Nature on Oct. 8, the researchers used a uranium decay technique to determine the age of the substance that covers the wall painting in Indonesia. The layer of the mineral called calcite was produced by water that flows through the cave's limestone.
The age of this mineral deposit helped narrow down the age of the prehistoric paintings as the encrusted art is presumed older than the mineral layers. Since the mineral coating of the image is at least 39,900 years old, the art it covers could be thousands of years older.
Scientists have long believed that the humans in Europe invented cave painting between 5,000 to 40,000 years ago. The findings, which revealed that the cave paintings in Indonesia were far older than previously thought and could even rival the age of cave paintings in Europe, suggest that early human settlers in southeast Asia were also honing their art skills during this period and Europe, may not be the cradle of human art as long believed.
"Europeans can't exclusively claim to be the first to develop an abstract mind anymore," said study researcher Anthony Dosseto, an archeologist from the University of Wollongong in Australia. "They need to share this, at least, with the early inhabitants of Indonesia."
Dosseto and colleagues said that the earliest dated image they have found in Maros Karsts in Sulawesi is now considered as the world's oldest known hand-stencil. A painting of a pig-deer was also estimated to be at least 35,400 years old and this makes it among, if not the oldest, figurative art in the world.
"We show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art," the researchers wrote. "Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ~40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world."
