Three people and a pig in the oldest known rock painting

Eldest known rock painting has been found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

The painting depicts a wild boar and three human figures around it. The work on the cave wall is at least 51,200 years old, say researchers.

This would make it more than 5,000 years older than the previous oldest cave art found. The discovery was made by Australian and Indonesian researchers.

Work of art moves back the moment when modern man first showed his ability to creative thinking.

Professor Maxime Aubert from Griffith University, Australia tells BBC Newsthat the discovery changes the understanding of human evolution.

“The painting tells a story. It’s the oldest evidence we have of storytelling.”

“The work shows that people at that time had the ability to think abstractly,” he said.

The work is done by first grinding the dye or pigment. It has a pig and figures painted on the walls of the cave. The size of the painting is about a meter.

The painting is located in the limestone cave of Leang Karampuang. It is in Maros-Pangkep district in South Sulawesi.

In the painting the pig stands still. Its mouth is partially open. There are three human-like figures around.

The largest of them extends its hands and appears to be holding a staff. Another person is in front of the pig, head next to the snout. He also appears to be holding a stick that appears to be touching the pig’s throat.

The third humanoid figure is depicted upside down. The legs reach up. His other hand appears to be touching the pig’s head.

Researchers led English: Adhi Agus Oktaviana. He is an Indonesian rock art expert, and his employer is BRIN, the National Research and Innovation Agency in Jakarta.

Oktaviana says that storytelling was an important part of people’s culture in Indonesia.

“Words don’t fossilize. All we see now is their art. The Sulawesi work is the oldest proof of that,” he said.

Timing the accuracy was made possible by a new method that uses a laser to cut very small samples from different parts of the painting.

This allows researchers to examine different parts of the artwork in detail. At the same time, the timing becomes more precise.

The timing is based on the layering of limestone in the caves. When the water seeps through the cave’s limestone, it picks up a small amount of uranium with it.

A film of lime slag forms over the cave painting.

It gradually accumulates more over the millennia. Over time, uranium decays into thorium at a rate that is precisely known.

Researchers can calculate the time that has passed since the calcareous shale began to deposit on top of the painting, says the website Science Alert.

As the method becomes more common, it will be used to reschedule many jobs that have already been found. It will produce surprises. The rock paintings may turn out to be older than previously thought.

“It’s fascinating to think that something significant happened in the human brain about 50,000 years ago. Still, it is likely that there are even older examples of performing arts somewhere,” says the doctor Henry Gee.

He is a journalist science journal in Nature. It published the discovery detail.

“This discovery strengthens the idea that art was also produced in Africa well over 50,000 years ago. The custom spread when the human species spread to other continents,” says the professor Chris Stringer From the Natural History Museum, London.

So Stringer believes that there is ancient performing art in Africa as well. We just haven’t found work yet.

Yet ten years ago, the only evidence of ancient cave art was found in Europe, including Spain and southern France.

It led some to believe that there was some kind of explosion of creativity in Europe that led to today’s art and science as well, kertoo New Scientist.

Evidence of drawing has previously been found from 75,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Drawings were found on stone surfaces in the Blombos caves in South Africa. They have geometric patterns and the lines don’t really represent anything.