Cave paintings dating back over 50,000 years have been discovered in a cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.Scientists believe that these images may be the oldest on Earth and, therefore, refute the existing theory that primitive art originated in Europe.
The painting found in the cave depicts a scene with three people and a wild boar. Although the drawing has not survived to this day in good condition, scientists were able to identify the characters. The red paint with which the animal is painted in its natural size - it reaches almost a meter in length - has remained bright, despite the time. Researchers, using the latest technologies, were able to establish that the image was made about 51,200 years ago. In particular, a laser was used to date the type of crystal called calcium carbonate, which naturally formed on top of the painting.
"This is the oldest evidence of storytelling," said Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia and co-author of the study. According to scientists, the drawings could have been created by the first group of people who moved through Southeast Asia to Australia, where they settled. And this happened about 65,000 years ago. "It's probably just a matter of time before we find older samples," Aubert added.
As archaeologist Adam Brumm said, "the juxtaposition of figures - how they are positioned relative to each other - and how they interact - was clearly deliberate, and this conveys an undoubted sense of action." "Something is happening between these figures, a story is being told," he explained. "Obviously, we don't know what that story was."
Previously, it was believed that narrative art first originated in Europe. In particular, the earliest works of primitive art are attributed to the Upper Paleolithic (35-10 thousand BC). They were discovered in the late 19th century in the Altamira cave in Cantabria, Spain.
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