44,000 year old cave painting thought to be world's oldest story
The hunting scene is thought to be the oldest known narrative piece of art yet discovered.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSA cave painting dating back to nearly 44,000 years is seen in Leang Bulu' Sipong 4 limestone cave in South Sulawesi(photo credit: COURTESY OF INDONESIA'S NATIONAL RESEARCH CENTRE FOR ARCHAEOLOGY/GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY/HANDOUT VIA REU)
A 44,000-year-old wall painting found in a cave in Indonesia is thought to be the oldest recorded story yet found. The red image, covering a panel approximately five meters wide, appears to show a buffalo-like animal called an anoa and wild pigs being hunted by human-like figures using ropes and spears. However, in an enigmatic twist that has researchers scratching their heads, the human figures also feature snouts and tails."I've never seen anything like this before," said Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, who presented the finding in the journal Nature."I mean, we've seen hundreds of rock art sites in this region - but we've never seen anything like a hunting scene," he added.The art was found in a cave called Leang Bulu'Sipong 4, in southern Sulawesi, an Indonesian island east of Borneo. At least 242 caves or shelters in Sulawesi have been found to contain primitive imagery, with new sites being found every year.Recounting the moment he first saw pictures of the image after a colleague climbed a fig tree to access the cave, Brumm said: "These images appeared on my iPhone. I think I said the characteristic Australian four-letter word out very loud."The team from Griffith University was able to date the drawing by analyzing calcite "popcorn" that had built up on the paint.Radioactive uranium present in the mineral decays over time to thorium at a known rate. Measuring the quantities of each isotope present in the samples allowed the experts to estimate the age of the depiction.Calcite on a pig began to form at least 43,900 years ago, they discovered, while that on two buffalo first formed 40,900 years ago, making the image by far the oldest narrative art yet discovered."Previously, rock art found in European sites dated to around 14,000 to 21,000 years old were considered to be the world's oldest clearly narrative artworks," the researchers reported in Nature.
It could also be the oldest known depiction of an animal, narrowly edging out a cave painting in Borneo which was found to be 40,000 years old.However, it is not the oldest known piece of art. That title belongs to a small fragment of rock found in South Africa, which features cross-hatched lines etched onto the rock surface with a red ochre "crayon."Archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood told Reuters that that image in its entirety was "probably more complex," adding that, "the abrupt termination of all lines on the fragment edges indicates that the pattern originally extended over a larger surface."
