JAKARTA, Indonesia—Figurative art discovered in a cave in the Karampuang Hills on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has been estimated to be at least 51,200 years old by a research team led by Adi Agus Octaviana of Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency. BBC News Report. Scientists used a technique called laser ablation U-series analysis to date the thin layers of calcium carbonate that formed on it over millennia to determine the artwork’s minimum age. The image depicts a wild pig with its mouth half open and three human-like figures. The largest figure holds a stick and has his arms outstretched. A second figure stands in front of the pig, his head close to the pig’s snout. This figure also holds a stick, which appears to be hanging down the pig’s throat. The third figure has his legs spread outward and one hand outstretched to the pig’s head. “The painting tells a complex story,” says Maxim Aubert of Griffith University. “This is the oldest evidence of storytelling. It shows that humans at that time had the ability to think in abstract terms,” he explained. For another example of the world’s oldest cave art, see New Ages of the Oldest Cave Art.
