Using a novel technique called laser ablation U-series (LA-U-series), archaeologists have re-dated some of the earliest cave art in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi and determined the age of stylistically similar motifs at other Maros-Pangkep sites. They’ve found that a hunting scene from the Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 cave site, which was originally dated using the previous approach to a minimum of 43,900 years ago, has a minimum age of 50,200 years (+- 2,200 years), and so is at least 4,040 years older than thought. They’ve also assigned a minimum age of 53,500 years (+- 2,300 years) to a newly described cave art scene at Leang Karampuang. Painted at least 51,200 years ago, this narrative composition, which depicts human-like figures interacting with a pig, is now the earliest known surviving example of representational art, and visual storytelling, in the world.
The 51,200-year-old Leang Karampuang painting. Image credit: Griffith University.
Prehistoric rock art provides important insights into past human cultures, but is typically challenging to date in an accurate and reliable manner.
Over the past few decades, solution-based U-series methods have been used to produce early dates for rock art in several regions, including western Europe, Island Southeast Asia and Siberia.
In Spain, a hand stencil has been dated using solution U-series analysis of overlying calcite to at least 64,800 years ago, and is therefore attributed to Neanderthals.
Up until now, the earliest evidence for figurative art had comprised a naturalistic painting of a Sulawesi warty pig at Leang Tedongnge in Maros-Pangkep, which was dated using solution U-series to a minimum of 45,500 years.
“We have previously used the uranium-series method to date very old rock art in two parts of Indonesia, Sulawesi and Borneo, but our new laser ablation U-series (LA-U-series) technique is more accurate,” said Griffith University’s Professor Maxime Aubert, senior author of the study.
“It allows us to date the earliest calcium carbonate layers formed on the art and get closer to the point in time the art was created. It will revolutionize rock art dating.”
“The innovative technique we’ve pioneered enables us to create detailed ‘maps’ of calcium carbonate layers,” added Southern Cross University’s Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau, co-author of the study.
“This capability empowers us to pinpoint and steer clear of regions affected by natural diagenesis processes, which stem from intricate growth histories.”
“Consequently, our age determinations for rock art become more robust and dependable.”
The discovery that the Leang Karampuang painting is at least 51,200 years old has important implications for our understanding of the origin of early art.
“Our results are very surprising: none of the famous European Ice Age art is anywhere near as old as this, with the exception of some controversial finds in Spain, and this is the first-time rock art dates in Indonesia have ever been pushed beyond the 50,000-year mark,” said study first author Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a rock art specialist from the National Research and Innovation Agency in Jakarta and a Ph.D, student at Griffith University.
The scientists also used the LA-U-series technique to re-date calcium carbonate deposits overlying a cave painting at the Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 cave site.
This painting comprises a narrative ‘scene’ depicting figures interpreted as therianthropes (part-human, part-animal beings) hunting warty pigs and dwarf buffalo and had previously been dated by the team to at least 43,900 years ago.
Using their new technique, the authors demonstrated the artwork is 4,040 years older in minimum age at around 48,000 years.
“The cave art from Leang Karampuang and Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 casts new light on the great age and important role of storytelling in the history of art,” said Griffith University’s Professor Adam Brumm, co-author of the study.
“It is noteworthy that the oldest cave art we have found in Sulawesi thus far consists of recognizable scenes: that is, paintings that depict humans and animals interacting in such a way that we can infer the artist intended to communicate a narrative of some kind — a story.”
“This was a novel finding because the academic view of early figurative cave art has long been that it consisted of single-figure panels in which no obvious scenes were evident, and that pictorial representations of storytelling only appeared much later in the art of Europe.”
The discovery suggests that narrative storytelling was a crucial part of early human artistic culture in Indonesia from a very early point in time.
“Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,200 years, but as words do not fossilize we can only go by indirect proxies like depictions of scenes in art — and the Sulawesi art is now the oldest such evidence by far that is known to archaeology,” Oktaviana said.
The findings appear in the journal Nature.
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A.A. Oktaviana et al. Narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago. Nature, published online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07541-7