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Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia

journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-16, 07:25 authored by Maxime Aubert, Adam Brumm, M Ramli, Thomas Sutikna, E Wahyu Saptomo, B Hakim, Michael Morwood, Gerrit van den BerghGerrit van den Bergh, Leslie Kinsley, Anthony DossetoAnthony Dosseto
Archaeologists have long been puzzled by the appearance in Europe ~40-35 thousand years (kyr) ago of a rich corpus of sophisticated artworks, including parietal art (that is, paintings, drawings and engravings on immobile rock surfaces)1, 2 and portable art (for example, carved figurines)3, 4, and the absence or scarcity of equivalent, well-dated evidence elsewhere, especially along early human migration routes in South Asia and the Far East, including Wallacea and Australia5, 6, 7, 8, where modern humans (Homo sapiens) were established by 50 kyr ago9, 10. Here, using uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with 12 human hand stencils and two figurative animal depictions from seven cave sites in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, we show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art11. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, is now the oldest known hand stencil in the world. In addition, a painting of a babirusa ('pig-deer') made at least 35.4 kyr ago is among the earliest dated figurative depictions worldwide, if not the earliest one. Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ~40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world.

Funding

A reliable absolute chronology for the Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley, Western Australia

Australian Research Council

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The oldest rock art in Asia and the early human occupation of island Southeast Asia

Australian Research Council

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A reassessment of early human stone technology from a Southeast Asian perspective

Australian Research Council

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A world of its own: earliest human occupation of the Maros karsts in Southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia

Australian Research Council

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History

Citation

Aubert , M., Brumm, A., Ramli, M., Sutikna, T., Saptomo, E. W., Hakim, B., Morwood, M. J., van den Bergh, G. D., Kinsley, L. & Dosseto, A. (2014). Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia. Nature, 514 (7521), 223-227.

Journal title

Nature

Volume

514

Issue

7521

Pagination

223-227

Language

English

RIS ID

95033

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