Previously, images of this level of sophistication dated to about 20,000 years ago, with the oldest cave paintings believed to be more basic creations such as handprints.
Look forward to reading that when next I have leisure time. Thanks, CN.
I find this equally fascinating and have just come across a fabulously detailed resource:The recently discovered Egyptian cave art bore quite a resemblance to ancient art from around the world and got me thinking about how our ancient ancestors chose to depict their subjects.
I find this equally fascinating and have just come across a fabulously detailed resource:
Cave Art
Characteristics, Types, Chronology, Meaning.
MAIN A-Z INDEX - A-Z of PREHISTORIC ART
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/cave-art.htm
Might be spending some time there - I'll get the coffees in... :btime:
Right on Fortean cue, this has literally just appeared as a newsfeed suggestion I might like.This is turning into a rather interesting Thread.
the world of the living brushes
(c) The Guardian. '20Tens of thousands of ice age paintings across a cliff face shed light on people and animals from 12,500 years ago
One of the world’s largest collections of prehistoric rock art has been discovered in the Amazonian rainforest.
Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients”, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia.
Their date is based partly on their depictions of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that hasn’t roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the palaeolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses.
These animals were all seen and painted by some of the very first humans ever to reach the Amazon. Their pictures give a glimpse into a lost, ancient civilisation. Such is the sheer scale of paintings that they will take generations to study.
The discovery was made last year, but has been kept secret until now as it was filmed for a major Channel 4 series to be screened in December: Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon.
Warty pig is oldest animal cave art on record
The oldest-known animal drawing in the world is a 45,500-year-old depiction of a hairy, warty pig on a cave wall in Indonesia, a new study finds.
The mulberry colored painting, drawn with the red mineral ochre, shows the profile of what is likely a Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis), a wild stubby-legged beast with facial warts that can weigh up to nearly 190 pounds (85 kilograms). These pigs "are still found there today, although in ever-dwindling numbers," said study co-lead researcher Adam Brumm ...
The finding provides more evidence that ancient Indonesia was a hot spot for rock art, and that "the first rock art traditions probably did not arise in ice age Europe as long supposed," Brumm told Live Science in an email. ...
Previously, the oldest-known rock art depicting an animal, a Sulawesi warty pig found in another cave on the island, dated to at least 43,900 years ago, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Nature, which was also discovered by Brumm and colleagues, including Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Griffith University. Meanwhile, the oldest known drawing (of any kind) made by a human is a 73,000-year-old hashtag painted on a rock flake from South Africa ...
Australia's oldest rock painting is an anatomically accurate kangaroo
A nearly-life-size depiction of a kangaroo — realistic genitalia included — is the oldest known rock painting in Australia. Scientists recently pinpointed its age to 17,300 years ago with a technique that had never been used on Australian ancient art before: measuring radioactive carbon in wasp nests from rocks near the artwork.
The kangaroo painting extends across the ceiling of a rock shelter and spans nearly 7 feet (2 meters), which is roughly the height of a modern kangaroo. This and other paintings in northwestern Australia's Kimberley region share certain stylistic features with the earliest cave art from Europe and Asia, the researchers reported. Very old animal paintings such as these are typically life-size (or close to it); they represent anatomy in a similar way, and their outlines are only partly filled-in with sketched lines. Because of these features, the paintings were thought to be among Australia's oldest. ...
"Here, the pigment used is invariably an iron oxide that cannot be dated directly," Finch told Live Science in an email. "If charcoal was used as a rock art pigment in ancient Aboriginal rock art, then we have yet to find any surviving examples in Australia." ...
So the scientists turned to mud wasps nests built under, above and near the art. Over a period of five years, they collected and analyzed 27 nests associated with 16 different rock paintings in Drysdale River National Park, painted in the region's oldest style. "We then use the pattern of all the maximum and minimum dates that apply to paintings of the same style, to estimate the period when they were painted," he explained. "The accuracy of this estimate increases as more and more nests are dated."
They found that most of the paintings were likely made between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago. As for the kangaroo painting, six nearby nests provided both minimum and maximum dates, enabling the scientists to estimate its age. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.scientificamerican.com/...gs-are-fading-climate-change-may-be-to-blame/World’s Oldest Cave Paintings Are Fading—Climate Change May Be to Blame
Repeated shifts between wet and dry conditions boost the growth of salt crystals that destabilize the rock canvas.
Some of the oldest art in human history is disintegrating, scientists say. And climate change may be hastening its demise.
New research reports that ancient rock art in Indonesian caves is degrading over time, as bits of rock slowly flake away from the walls. It's a tremendous loss for human history — some of these paintings, which depict everything from animals to human figures to abstract symbols, date back about 40,000 years.
Salt crystals building up on the walls are a key part of the problem, the study suggests. These salt deposits seep into the cave walls, then proceed to expand and contract as temperatures rise and fall. This process causes the rock to slowly disintegrate. ...
Changes in the weather may be helping the process along, scientists say. ...
The new study, led by Jillian Huntley at Australia's Griffith University, examined 11 ancient cave art sites in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The researchers found evidence of salt formation at all 11 sites. At three of the sites, they found the types of crystals that most notoriously cause rocks to break apart. ...
It's a small sample; there are more than 300 known cave art sites scattered around the region. But the research suggests that salt crystals may indeed be part of the problem. ...
Scientists have proposed multiple theories about what might be causing it. Along with climate change, they've suggested that pollution and other disturbances from nearby limestone mining operations might be degrading the fragile paintings. ...