Sulawesi hunting scene sites under threat from mining and climate change (+ videos)

via Quartz, 15 December 2019: Indexing another list of stories about the amazing 44,000-year-old hunting scene from Sulawesi (see previous roundups here and here). The story covered by Quartz highlights that the site (along with many other sites in the area) is in danger due to effects from nearby mining and climate change. The headline for the Quartz story is also inaccurate – it’s not the oldest cave art, just the oldest hunting scene.

But now that the art has been discovered, it’s also threatening to disappear.

For reasons that are unclear to the researchers, large chunks of the cave surfaces in the area are inexplicably “exfoliating,” they say, and the panel may not last long. The archaeologists believe that exposure to pollution—mining operations are nearby—or to increasingly extreme monsoon seasons resulting from climate change may explain why the surfaces are peeling.

“It could be one of the bitter ironies that we only just discovered the extreme antiquity of this rock art in the last few years and it could be gone within our lifetimes,” study author Adam Brumm told the Washington Post. Researchers are raising funds now to laser scan the paintings and create digital archives before it’s too late.

Source: The world’s oldest cave art was just dated—and it faces oblivion — Quartz

Puslit Arkenas (The National Archaeology Center) has a video on the YouTube Channel with more images of the rock art and the cave itself: