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Illustration of a wild boar, discovered on the wall of an inaccessible cave from the island of Sulawesi Indonesia, is the oldest cave painting animal of the world and generally the oldest representative cave painting found to date.
This particular sculpture is estimated to be at least 45,500 years old. In 2019, the same scientific team had discovered elsewhere on the same island the oldest speleography to date, at least 43,900 years old. In the future, researchers hope to find even older rock paintings in Sulawesi.
Painted in dark red ocher, the life-size painting at Leang Tedongge Cave in a remote valley on the island, an hour’s walk from the nearest road, appears to be part of the narrative of a larger scene involving only two other pigs, in part.
These short-legged wild boars, which still survive as a species, have been a predominant target for hunters on the Indonesian island for thousands of years.
According to members of the isolated local Bugis community, this is the first time Western eyes have seen the image with the animals in the cave. But locals hadn’t found out about the cave until 2017, when it was discovered.
The researchers, led by Maxim Ober of Griffith University in Australia, published their findings in the journal Science Advances, according to the BBC, Agence France-Presse and The New York Times.
The creators of the painted image are unknown. It is possible, but not certain, that the painting was made by homo sapiens.
As Ober said, “The people who painted it were completely modern, just like us, they had all the ability and tools to paint whatever they wanted.”
The image of the male pig measures 136 by 54 cm, which is almost a meter and a half long, while close to it are the colored fingerprints of two human hands, from which scientists will try to extract samples of ancient DNA.
“The discovery reinforces the evidence that the first modern human rock art did not appear during the Ice Age in Europe, as has long been estimated, but much earlier,” said Griffith University archaeologist Adam Broome.
Painting is the oldest animal form in the world, but not the oldest man-made. This is a design found in South Africa that is approximately 73,000 years old.
It is unclear when the human ancestors arrived in Indonesia and the other islands of Southeast Asia. After the massive “exodus” from Africa, it is estimated that past migrants crossed these islands in some way and reached Australia around 65,000 years ago.
