Oldest Known Figurative Cave Art

[AlchoPwn]

This was a bit of a surprise. 40,000 years old. The depiction of a now-extinct form of bovine is pretty interesting. Hope y'all find this as worthwhile as I did.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Recently published discoveries push the age of figural animal art back to at least 45,000 years ago.

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 ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/pig-oldest-cave-animal-drawing.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here are the bibliographic particulars and abstract for the published report.

Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi
Adam Brumm1, Adhi Agus Oktaviana, Basran Burhan, Budianto Hakim, Rustan Lebe, Jian-xin Zhao, Priyatno Hadi Sulistyarto, Marlon Ririmasse, Shinatria Adhityatama, Iwan Sumantri and Maxime Aubert2
Science Advances 13 Jan 2021:
Vol. 7, no. 3, eabd4648
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd4648

Abstract
Indonesia harbors some of the oldest known surviving cave art. Previously, the earliest dated rock art from this region was a figurative painting of a Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis). This image from Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 in the limestone karsts of Maros-Pangkep, South Sulawesi, was created at least 43,900 years ago (43.9 ka) based on Uranium-series dating. Here, we report the Uranium-series dating of two figurative cave paintings of Sulawesi warty pigs recently discovered in the same karst area. The oldest, with a minimum age of 45.5 ka, is from Leang Tedongnge. The second image, from Leang Balangajia 1, dates to at least 32 ka. To our knowledge, the animal painting from Leang Tedongnge is the earliest known representational work of art in the world. There is no reason to suppose, however, that this early rock art is a unique example in Island Southeast Asia or the wider region.

SOURCE (& FULL ARTICLE): https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eabd4648