The island of Sulawesi continues to reveal its ancient secrets to archaeologists.

An international team has discovered there the oldest cave painting known in the world, as reported Wednesday, January 13 the journal Science Advances.

This is the life-size image of a wild boar, taken at least 45,500 years ago, which also provides the oldest evidence of human presence in this region of Indonesia.

It is on the same island of Sulawesi (or Celebes) that the previous oldest rock painting was also found.

A co-author of the Sciences Advances article, Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Australia, told AFP that the painting was discovered in 2017 by Basran Burhan, a doctoral student, as part of archaeological excavations that the team was working with the Indonesian authorities. 

Leang Tedongnge Cave is located in a secluded valley surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs, and about an hour's walk from the nearest road.

It is only accessible during the dry season, due to flooding during the rainy season.

Members of the isolated Bugis community told the team that this was the first time Westerners had accessed it.

Celebes' wild boars hunted for tens of thousands of years

Measuring 54 cm high and 1.36 m wide, this painting of a Celebes boar was made using a dark red ocher pigment.

The boar is depicted with a short mane of erect hairs, as well as a pair of facial growths resembling tusks, typical of adult males of the species.

Two outlines of hands are visible above the rear part of the pig and appear to be facing two other wild boars which have only been partially preserved.

All giving the impression of representing a narrative scene.

"The pig appears to be observing a fight or social interaction between two other wild boars," said another co-author, Adam Brumm.

Hominids hunted Celebes boars on the island of Sulawesi for tens of thousands of years, and the latter are often depicted in the region's prehistoric art, particularly that of the Ice Age.

A painting that "could be much older"

Dating specialist Maxime Aubert identified a deposit of calcite that formed above the fresco, then used a uranium dating method to claim that the deposit was 45,500 years old.

The fresco is therefore at least as old, "but it could be much older because the dating that we use only dates the calcite on top," explained the researcher.

"The people who made it were completely modern, they were like us, they had all the skills and tools to do any painting they wanted," he added.

Before this, the oldest known rock painting had been discovered by the same team, also on the island of Sulawesi.

It depicted a group of half-human, half-animal figures hunting mammals, and was found to be at least 43,900 years old.

Solving the mystery of Australia's settlement

Cave frescoes like these also help fill in the gaps in our knowledge of ancient human migrations.

Populations are known to have reached Australia nearly 65,000 years ago, and they probably first crossed the eastern Indonesian archipelago Wallacea, of which Sulawesi is a part.

The archaeological site now represents the oldest evidence of human presence in Wallacea, but researchers hope that further excavation will show that peoples were present in the region long before, helping to solve the mystery of the settlement of Australia. .

The team also believes that the painting was done by Homo sapiens, and not by now extinct human species like the Denisovans, but cannot say for sure.

To make the hand outlines, prehistoric artists had to place their hands on the rock surface before spitting pigments over it.

The team hopes to be able to extract DNA samples from leftover saliva.

With AFP

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