Archaeology World's oldest cave art discovered to date in Indonesia
Prehistoric and mysterious: a handprint in a limestone cave in Indonesia is the oldest known cave art in the world to date, according to researchers.
22.01.2026, 04:32
SDA
The fragment of a 14 by 10 centimeter hand stencil has been dated to a minimum age of around 67,800 years, surpassing an earlier record find from Sulawesi in 2024 by more than 15,000 years.
Hand stencils - also known as hand negatives - are a form of representation in which a hand is placed on the rock face and paint - such as red ochre - is blown or sprayed over it. The imprint of the hand can then be seen as a bright silhouette. The discovery provides new evidence of the early spread of modern man and the colonization of Australia, it was said.
The artwork is located in a cave on the island of Muna, a side island of Sulawesi in south-eastern Indonesia. Sulawesi is popular with tourists from all over the world because of its volcanoes, coral reefs and diving spots.
What is uranium series dating?
The cave art was discovered and studied by an international team of experts led by scientists from Griffith University in Australia, the Indonesian research authority BRIN and Southern Cross University in Australia. The results were published in the scientific journal "Nature".
The researchers used a dating method in which the age is determined using radioactive decay processes in deposits. Microscopically small mineral deposits that had formed above and sometimes below the paint layers were analyzed. This made it possible to narrow down the period in which the artwork was created.
The scientists also report that the cave was used for artistic purposes over an unusually long period of time. According to this, paintings were repeatedly created there over a period of at least 35,000 years - until around 20,000 years ago. The hand negative found is surrounded by much more recent depictions.
The results made it clear "that Sulawesi was home to one of the richest and longest-lived artistic cultures in the world, with origins in the earliest history of human settlement on the island at least 67,800 years ago," said archaeologist and geochemist Maxime Aubert from Griffith University.
Fingers were subsequently narrowed
According to the team's observations, the hand negative also has a special feature: The originally sprayed hand was subsequently altered by deliberately narrowing the negative outlines of the fingers. This creates the impression of a claw-like hand. The symbolic content of this change is unclear, the researchers explain - but it could be a sign that humans and animals were closely connected at the time.
According to the research team, the finds have far-reaching significance for understanding the early history of the Australian Aborigines. "It is very likely that the people who created these images in Sulawesi were part of the larger population group that later spread throughout the region and eventually reached Australia," said BRIN scientist Adhi Agus Oktaviana.
Australia probably already colonized 65,000 years ago
Experts have long debated when the primeval continent of Sahul - today's Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea - was first colonized by humans. While some models assume an arrival around 50,000 years ago, others speak of at least 65,000 years ago. "The discovery strongly supports the assumption that the ancestors of the first Australians were already in Sahul 65,000 years ago," said Oktaviana.
The dating is considered the oldest direct evidence to date for modern humans along a northern migration route from Asia via Sulawesi and the Moluccas to Sahul. "With the dating of this extremely old cave art in Sulawesi, we now have the oldest direct evidence for the presence of modern humans along this northern migration corridor," said geoarchaeologist Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University.
