via Nature and various news sources, 07 November 2018: Burning up my news feeds today is a newly-published paper in Nature about new dates from rock art in Borneo. A painting of a ‘banteng’ is at least 40,000 years old, making it the oldest figurative painting in the world and adds to other similarly-dated rock art in Sulawesi. Other dates discovered also suggest multiple periods of painting from the last 50,000 years. Congrats to Max Aubert and team!
Figurative cave paintings from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi date to at least 35,000 years ago (ka) and hand-stencil art from the same region has a minimum date of 40 ka1. Here we show that similar rock art was created during essentially the same time period on the adjacent island of Borneo. Uranium-series analysis of calcium carbonate deposits that overlie a large reddish-orange figurative painting of an animal at Lubang Jeriji Saléh—a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo—yielded a minimum date of 40 ka, which to our knowledge is currently the oldest date for figurative artwork from anywhere in the world. In addition, two reddish-orange-coloured hand stencils from the same site each yielded a minimum uranium-series date of 37.2 ka, and a third hand stencil of the same hue has a maximum date of 51.8 ka. We also obtained uranium-series determinations for cave art motifs from Lubang Jeriji Saléh and three other East Kalimantan karst caves, which enable us to constrain the chronology of a distinct younger phase of Pleistocene rock art production in this region. Dark-purple hand stencils, some of which are decorated with intricate motifs, date to about 21–20 ka and a rare Pleistocene depiction of a human figure—also coloured dark purple—has a minimum date of 13.6 ka. Our findings show that cave painting appeared in eastern Borneo between 52 and 40 ka and that a new style of parietal art arose during the Last Glacial Maximum. It is now evident that a major Palaeolithic cave art province existed in the eastern extremity of continental Eurasia and in adjacent Wallacea from at least 40 ka until the Last Glacial Maximum, which has implications for understanding how early rock art traditions emerged, developed and spread in Pleistocene Southeast Asia and further afield.
Source: Palaeolithic cave art in Borneo | Nature
See also:
- ‘Oldest animal painting’ discovered in Borneo | BBC, 07 Nov 2018
- Earliest cave paintings of animal discovered in Indonesia, dating back 40,000 years | USA Today, 07 Nov 2018
- In Cave in Borneo Jungle, Scientists Find Oldest Figurative Painting in the World | New York Times, 07 Nov 2018
- World’s oldest-known animal cave art painted at least 40,000 years ago in Borneo | ABC News, 08 Nov 2018
- A Discovery in a Borneo Cave Just Crushed The Record For The Oldest Known Figurative Art | Science Alert, 07 November 2018
- Borneo cave discovery: is the world’s oldest rock art in Southeast Asia? | The Conversation, 08 November 2018
- Our Ancestors May Have Been Making Simple Art For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Years | Forbes, 08 November 2018
- Oldest known animal drawing found in remote Indonesian cave | AP News, via CBS6 News, 08 November 2018
- Like Europe, Borneo hosted Stone Age cave artists | Science News, 07 November 2018
- World’s Oldest-Known Figurative Paintings Discovered in Borneo Cave | Smithsonian, 07 November 2018
- This animal image may be the world’s oldest figurative art | Science, 07 November 2018
- World’s Oldest Animal Drawing, Discovered in Borneo Cave, Is a Weird Cow Beast | Live Science, 07 November 2018
- World’s ‘oldest figurative painting’ discovered in Borneo cave | The Guardian, 07 November 2018
- Indonesian Caves Hold Oldest Figurative Painting Ever Found, Scientists Say | NPR news, via Delaware Public Media, 07 November 2018
- World’s Earliest Figurative Art Wasn’t in Europe, Archaeologists Reveal | Haretz, 07 November 2018
- 40,000-year-old cave art may be world’s oldest animal drawing | National Geographic, 07 November 2018
- The world’s oldest figurative drawing depicts a wounded animal | Ars Technica, 10 November 2018
- A VERY old master: Cave art showing a cow-like creature and created in Borneo 40,000 years ago is the world’s oldest figurative art, scientists reveal | Daily Mail, 07 November 2018
