A team of scientists co-led by researchers from Australia’s Griffith University, the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) and Southern Cross University has discovered and dated a cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi that may be the oldest known evidence of storytelling in art, with the findings published in the journal Nature.
The painting, located in the limestone cave of Leang Karampuang in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi, portrays three human-like figures interacting with a wild pig. To determine its age, the team applied a novel method of laser ablation U-series (LA-U-series) analysis, to date tiny layers of calcium carbonate that had formed on top of the art.
The results revealed the underlying artwork was painted at least 51,200 years ago, making it the oldest known reliably dated cave art image in the world, and the earliest narrative art found anywhere.
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