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World's oldest artwork uncovered in Indonesian cave: study

A 44,000 year-old cave painting discovered in Indonesia's Sulawesi island two years ago is projected to be the world's oldest artwork, a new study published in an academic journal has found.

  (Agence France-Presse)
Jakarta
Thu, December 12, 2019

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World's oldest artwork uncovered in Indonesian cave: study This handout photography released by Griffith University on December 11, 2019, shows cave art inside Bulu Sipong 4, Sulawesi, Indonesia. A hunting scene painted 44,000 years ago, the oldest known to date, whose half-human, half-animal representations suggest a successful artistic culture, or even the beginnings of a religion, was discovered in a prehistoric cave in Indonesia, has been revealed in a study on December 11. (Griffith University/ AFP/Ratno Sardi)

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n Indonesian cave painting that depicts a prehistoric hunting scene could be the world's oldest figurative artwork dating back nearly 44,000 years, pointing to an advanced artistic culture, according to new research.

Discovered two years ago on the island of Sulawesi, the 4.5 meter (13 foot) wide painting features wild animals being chased by half-human hunters wielding what appear to be spears and ropes, said the study published in Nature on Wednesday.

Using dating technology, the team at Australia's Griffith University said it had confirmed that the limestone cave painting dated back at least 43,900 years during the Upper Paleolithic period.

"This hunting scene is – to our knowledge – currently the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world," researchers said.

The discovery comes after a painting of an animal in a cave on the Indonesian island of Borneo was earlier determined to have been at least 40,000 years old.

For many years, cave art was thought to have emerged from Europe, but Indonesian paintings have challenged that theory.

There are at least 242 caves or shelters with ancient imagery on Sulawesi alone, and new sites are being discovered annually, the team said.

In the latest dated scene, hunters are depicted in dark red colors with human bodies and the heads of animals including birds and reptiles.

The painting, which is in poor condition, suggests that a highly advanced artistic culture existed some 44,000 years ago, punctuated by folklore, religious myths and spiritual belief, the team said.

"[The scene] may be regarded not only as the earliest dated figurative art in the world but also as the oldest evidence for the communication of a narrative in Palaeolithic art," researchers said.

"This is noteworthy, given that the ability to invent fictional stories may have been the last and most crucial stage in the evolutionary history of human language and the development of modern-like patterns of cognition."

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