"The faded outline of a hand on a cave wall in Indonesia may be the world's oldest known rock art, according to archaeologists who say it was created at least 67,800 years ago. The ancient hand stencil was discovered in a limestone cave popular with tourists on Muna Island, part of south-eastern Sulawesi, where it had gone unnoticed between more recent paintings of animals and other figures."
"There's a lot of rock art out there but it's really difficult to date, said Prof Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Queensland. When you can date it, it opens up a completely different world. It's an intimate window into the past, and an intimate window into these people's minds. An enhanced image showing the narrow, pointy fingers of the stencil."
"In one cave, a narrative scene depicting three human-like figures and a wild pig was dated to at least 51,200 years ago. The latest hand stencil was spotted at Liang Metanduno, a cave on Sulawesi's south-eastern peninsula. Though faded and partially obscured by a more recent motif on the wall, it was ascribed a minimum age after the team dated tiny calcite deposits that had formed over the top."
A faded hand stencil on a limestone cave wall on Muna Island, southeastern Sulawesi, has been dated to at least 67,800 years using tiny calcite deposits that formed over the pigment. The stencil was located among more recent animal paintings and had previously gone unnoticed. Other Sulawesi cave art includes a narrative scene with human-like figures and a wild pig dated to at least 51,200 years. Humans have produced new images in some caves for at least 35,000 years. The rock art supports a northern migration route from Sunda across Sulawesi toward Sahul and suggests links to ancestors of Indigenous Australians.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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