Culture News

A 67,800-year-old hand stencil in Indonesia becomes the world's oldest known rock art

A faded reddish hand stencil in Liang Metanduno cave on Muna, a small island off Sulawesi in Indonesia, is at least 67,800 years old, making it the oldest known rock art, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, January 21. Reuters, carried by GMA News, reports that the team set the minimum age by measuring uranium in thin mineral layers that formed on top of the pigment. The image was made by blowing pigment over a hand pressed against the wall.

The team, led by Maxime Aubert of Griffith University, dated 11 motifs and documented 44 sites in south-east Sulawesi, 14 of them previously unknown, The Art Newspaper reports. The stencil's fingertips were reshaped to look pointed, a style found only in Sulawesi; co-author Adam Brumm suggested it may have had a symbolic meaning linked to animals. Reuters notes the cave is a tourist site known mainly for paintings made about 4,000 years ago.

The find “changes how we understand our shared human story.” — Maxime Aubert, via The Art Newspaper

The Jakarta Post focused on the Indonesian side: co-author Adhi Agus Oktaviana of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has searched Muna for hand stencils since 2015 and found this one partly hidden under newer paintings. The paper says the stencil is in a “poor state of conservation”. The previous record holder, a wild pig painting in Maros-Pangkep in South Sulawesi dated to about 51,200 years ago, lies about 300 km away.

All three link the find to the debate on when people reached Australia. Aubert says the evidence now supports the “long chronology” of arrival around 60,000 to 65,000 years ago, rather than about 50,000.

How each outlet framed it

• Reuters (via GMA News) — the dating method and the Australia migration debate.
• The Art Newspaper — the wider survey and the art-history record.
• The Jakarta Post — the Indonesian researcher and the fragile state of the site.

Where the numbers differ: Reuters dates a Neanderthal-attributed hand stencil at Maltravieso in Spain to about 64,000 years; The Art Newspaper puts the Spanish example only about 1,100 years younger than the Muna stencil.