“Ancient Cave Art: Is This 44,000-Year-Old Masterpiece Revealing Humanity’s First Tale?”
Not only that, the painting also appeared to show these animals being hunted by figures that look human but also possessed animal traits like tails and snouts. In one section of the painting, an anoa seemed to be surrounded by several of these human-like figures who are wielding weapons.
Although the rock art isn’t the oldest human-made drawing — that title belongs to a tiny sketch found on a rock fragment in South Africa from 73,000 years ago — researchers believe the Sulawesi painting could be the world’s oldest clearly narrative artwork as scientists have determined the painting to be at least 44,000 years old. In other words, it could be the oldest story scene ever recorded by human beings.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. I mean, we’ve seen hundreds of rock art sites in this region, but we’ve never seen anything like a hunting scene,” explained Brumm, a researcher at Australia’s Griffith University and co-author of the study which was published in the journal Nature.
Maxime Aubert/PA Wire
The scene in its entirety depicts the hunt of wild pigs and a small buffalo known on the island as anoa.
To determine the cave painting’s true age, researchers led by archaeologist Maxime Aubert analyzed what is known as calcite “popcorn” that had built up on the painting after tens of thousands of years. The radioactive uranium in the mineral had slowly decayed into thorium and by measuring the different levels of isotopes researchers were able to determine the age of the popcorn on each section of the painting.
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