Mankind’s oldest cave painting

On December 11, 2019, Nature research journal, published a new discovery of a cave painting depicting a hunting scene from an Indonesian cave. It is estimated to be 44,000 years old and if this date is confirmed to be true then it would emerge as the humanity’s earliest cave art painting ever discovered. The picture of this cave art painting was first taken by Ratno Sardi and its features were described by Ewen Callaway. Before this discovery, the earliest known cave paintings were discovered from Europe which dated back some 14,000 to 21,000 years. This painting which is from a cave in southern Sulawesi region of Indonesia, is a very large panel of roughly 4.5 metre in length depicting a hunting scene of human figures and local ancient animals. The paintings were made from material which was reddish brown in colour. The painting shows wild pigs and small sized buffaloes confronted and hunted by human-like figures which have some animal features of tails and snouts. Dating of the cave paintings has been determined from ‘calcite popcorns’ taken from the pig in the picture and from the buffaloes. Radioactive uranium dating of the pig was estimated at 43,900 years and that of the buffaloes as 40,900 years. In many cultures animal-human mythological figures are created in stories and depicted in paintings which are known as therianthropes. Creation of such figures by ancient cave dwellers indicate their creative abilities to conceive such figures which don’t exist in the natural world. These mythical figures may have been created for spiritual purposes, expressing meaning and purpose to human life.  The scientists are thrilled by this discovery and opine that such type of hunting scene is very rare in hundreds of cave paintings from across the world. But many experts raise doubts about it being a hunting scene. They argue that it may be a result of a series of paintings made over a consecutive time spans and by different artists. The find of this painting in itself seems to be a step forward in understanding the cultural evolution of mankind as it extends the date of painting back in time. However, only one painting is not enough to come to a concrete conclusion for the history of cave art paintings and rigorous scientific scrutiny is required for its dating from different animals and figures painted therein.