Researchers claim that the painted outline of a human hand found within a cave on the Indonesian island of Muna is the world’s oldest example of rock art, dating back at least 67,800 years.
Muna is an island off the larger eastern Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Maxime Aubert, an archaeological research specialist at Griffith University in Australia, stated that the recently-found hand cave art is unique since it is made in a style particular to Sulawesi.
“The tips of the fingers were carefully reshaped to make them appear pointed,” he said.
“It was almost as if they were deliberately trying to transform this image of a human hand into something else – an animal claw perhaps.”
Professor Adam Brumm added that since rock art is typically difficult to date and doesn’t date back to anywhere near that old, the discovery is really remarkable.
Meanwhile, Durham University’s Professor Paul Pettitt added that it was unclear if the Sulawesi hand stencils with sharp fingers were intentionally created or just the result of the artist’s finger movements, adding that the hand art may also potentially be created by other human groups aside from the Homo sapiens.
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Dating the historic art cave
The art was determined by examining the mineral crusts that had progressively developed on top of the paintings.
By examining trace levels of the element uranium in mineral layers that progressively developed on top of the pigment, the researchers were able to calculate the cave art’s minimum age.
To determine how the uranium degraded over time, the researchers first collected five-millimeter samples of tiny clusters of calcite that grew on the limestone cave walls.
They then used a laser to zap the rock strata.
The discovery’s implications on humanity’s past
Compared to a painting in another Sulawesi cave that the same researchers dated in 2024, the hand stencil is over 15,000 years older.
It is estimated that the picture, which showed three human-like characters interacting with a pig, is approximately 51,200 years old.
“It really just shows how long people have been making rock art in that part of the world… It’s a very long time,” Brumm said.
According to Brumm, scientists examining 30,000-40,000-year-old Ice Age cave paintings in France and Spain concluded that there is where true art and modern human artistic culture began, but the recent discovery shows that tens of thousands of years before our species ever stepped foot in that region of the planet, individuals outside of Europe were creating extremely sophisticated cave art.
“Now that we’re finding rock art dating to 67-68,000 years ago on the island of Sulawesi, which is essentially on Australia’s doorstep, it does make it considerably more likely that modern humans indeed were in Australia at least 65,000 years ago,” he said.
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