Oldest known picture story is a 51,000-year-old Indonesian cave painting

[muriel_volestrangler]

The world’s oldest known picture story is a cave painting almost 6,000 years older than the previous record holder, found about 10km away on the same island in Indonesia, an international team of archaeologists has said.

The painting, believed to be at least 51,200 years old, was found at Leang Karampuang cave on the east Indonesian island of Sulawesi, researchers from Griffith University, Southern Cross University and the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency wrote in the journal Nature.

The recently discovered painting is of three therianthropes – or human-animal hybrids – and a wild pig.
...
The finding contradicts the academic view that early figurative cave art consisted of single figure panels rather than scenes where figures interacted with each other.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/03/oldest-picture-story-cave-painting-indonesia-record-51000-years

The team of scientists was led by Adhi Agus Oktaviana, an Indonesian rock art specialist from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in Jakarta. He says that that narrative storytelling was a crucial part of early human culture in Indonesia from a very early point in time.

“Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,200 years, but as words do not fossilise we can only go by indirect proxies like depictions of scenes in art – and the Sulawesi art is now the oldest such evidence by far that is known to archaeology,” he said.

The first evidence for drawing on stones found in the Blombos Caves in southern Africa dating back to between 75,000 to 100,000 years ago. These consist of geometric patterns.

The new painting, in the limestone cave of Leang Karampuang in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi, shows representational art – and abstract representation of the world around the person or people that painted it. It therefore represents an evolution in the thought processes in our species that gave rise to art and science.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0vewjq4dxwo

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[hunter]

1. Seems the hunt didn't end well for one of the hunters.

Perhaps this is some kind of memorial, or a retelling of an older story.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Wonderful step forward (and backwards). " . . . believed to be at least 51,200 years old."

Hoping they will be studying this area a lot more now. It's too cool seeing the focus moving away from Europe for the moment!

Thank you.