Hand print made in cave 67,800 years ago could be world’s oldest rock painting

The faded outline ofa hand ona cave wallin Indonesia may be the world’s oldest known rock art according to archaeologists who say it was created at least 67,800 years ago.

- Ian Sample Science editor

The hand stencil was found ina limestone cave popular with tourists onMunalsland, part of southeastern Sulawesi. It had gone unnoticed between more recent paintings of animals and other figures and was probably created by the ancestors of Indigenous Australians.

‘As well as pushing back the minimum age for cave art by a few thousand years, the discovery sheds light on how and when Australia first became settled.

“There’s a lot of rock art out there but it’s really difficult to date,” said Maxime Aubert of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. “When you can date it, it opens up a completely different world. It’s an intimate windowinto the pastand an intimate window into these people’s minds.”

Fieldwork led by the archaeologist and his fellow Griffith professor Adam Brumm hasrevealedarich history of cave paintings in Sulawesi. One scene depicting three human-like figures and a wild pig was dated to at least 51,200 years ago.