Scientists have dated the oldest known cave paintings in the world and it has changed the way scientists think about art's origins.
Nature.com
Scientists recently analyzed cave paintings in Indonesia and found that they were much older than had previously been thought. The analyses dated the paintings to be some of the world’s oldest. The find also changes currently held ideas about the origins of art, reported the BBC, Oct. 8.
The paintings were found on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. Until this discovery, the oldest known cave paintings were thought to be from Western Europe.
The Indonesian paintings are reported to be up to approximately 40,000 years old, which is quite a surprise because when previously reported in the 1950s, experts had assumed that the images on the cave walls were a lot younger. The experts judged that the paintings must have coincided with the rate at which the limestone in the caves had eroded.
This judgement led them to believe that the paintings must have been less than 10,000 years old. This along with the fact that previously held notions pointed to the animals (“pig dear” or babirusa) which had been drawn on the cave walls as being approximately 10,000 years old, as well.
Not until recently have researchers looked at the paintings through analysis. Indonesian and Australian scientists analyzed seven of the Sulawesi caves and found that Western Europe may not have been the originator of cave art. Until now, there was little to no evidence to say anything different. According to a new study this week in Nature by Maxime Aubert and Adam Brumm, archaeologists had been “puzzled” that no other artifacts of this sort had been found, previously. They report that their findings “show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art.”
Previously, it was thought that the Western European cave paintings were the oldest to have been made with pigments but the Indonesian cave paintings also use pigments. The Indonesian cave paintings show animals which were created on top of a foundation of handprint stencils. These images have been dated to be between 17,400 and 39,900 years old. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the find has “important implications" for theories of human evolution. “Rock art is one of the first indicators of an abstract mind,” related Thomas Sutikna, one of the Indonesian researchers.
The oldest cave painting on record exists at El Castillo in Spain and has been dated to be 41,000 years old. Researchers now believe that cave art perhaps developed, not in one place but in multiple places at the same time, without the influence of the other. However, scientists are still looking for answers regarding an origin as the cave art discoveries seem to suggest that “these practices have deeper origins, perhaps in Africa before our species left this continent and spread across the globe,” Dr. Maxime Aubert of Griffith University said.
"I predict that even older examples of cave art will be discovered on Sulawesi, and in mainland Asia, and ultimately in our African homeland," said Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London. Reported National Geographic, previously held notions about the origins of pigmented cave art had been too ‘Euro-centric.’ Alistair Pike, another expert from the University of Southampton in the UK said that "Absolutely this changes our views, and is going to make us ask a lot of questions about the causes rather than the origins of cave art."
*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com
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