Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Animal painting found in cave is 44,000 years old

A section of the ancient cave art discovered in Indonesia that depicts a type of buffalo called an anoa, at right, facing several smaller human–animal figures.Credit: Ratno Sardi

World’s Oldest Story?
Researchers have found what they think may be the world’s oldest recorded story. A painting discovered on the wall of an Indonesian cave has been dated to 44,000 years old. The art appears to show a buffalo being hunted by part-human, part-animal creatures holding spears and possibly ropes. Details of the discovery were published in the journal Nature by archaeologists from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. I mean, we’ve seen hundreds of rock art sites in this region, but we’ve never seen anything like a hunting scene.” says Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Brisbane.

The depiction of these animal–human figures suggest that early humans in Sulawesi had the ability to conceive of things that do not exist in the natural world, say the researchers.
Drawings found in a cave called Leang Bulu'Sipong 4 in the south of Sulawesi
What do the drawings show?
The drawings were found in a cave called Leang Bulu'Sipong 4 in the south of Sulawesi, an Indonesian island east of Borneo. The panel, which is almost five metres wide, appears to show a type of buffalo called an anoa, plus wild pigs found on Sulawesi. It includes smaller figures that look human but have animal features such as tails and snouts. The painting shows an anoa flanked by several figures holding spears depicting a hunting scene. Some researchers, however, have questioned whether the panel represents a single story, or a series of images painted over a longer period.
The Lion Man. Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 40,000 years old. The oldest known evidence of religious belief in the world. © Ulmer Museum.
 The oldest such example from Europe is a half-lion, half-human ivory figure from Germany that researchers have estimated to be 40,000 years old - although some suggest that it might be significantly younger. The Lion Man sculpture found in Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, has been described as a masterpiece. It provides the oldest known evidence of religious belief. It stands 31 centimetres tall and has the head of a cave lion with a partly human body.

How do we know it's 44,000 years old?
The team calculated the age of the painting by analysing the calcite that had built up on the painting. They found the calcite on a pig began forming at least 43,900 years ago, and the deposits on two buffalo were at least 40,900 years old. This material builds up in the exact same way that stalagmites and stalactites form in a cave.
The calcite incorporates small numbers of naturally occurring radioactive uranium atoms. These atoms decay into thorium at a very precise rate through the ages enabling researchers to determine the age of the artwork. Scientists take a very thin films of the deposit from just above the paint pigments. Because the film was on top, the dates generated were minimum ages. In other words, the paintings had to be at least as old as the calcite deposits and probably much older.
How does it compare to other prehistoric art?
However, the Indonesian drawing is not the oldest in the world. Last year scientists reported finding what was described as ‘humanity’s oldest drawing’ on a fragment of rock in South Africa which was 73,000 years old.

In 2018, a cave painting in Borneo - thought to be the oldest of an animal - was found to be at least 40,000 years old. It is thought to be the oldest example of figurative painting where real objects are depicted rather than abstract shapes. The researchers aren't certain what animal it represents, but it may be a banteng, a type of wild cow that lives in the area today.
This tracing of the cave wall shows the 40,000-year-old painting on the far right. The black box shows the area which was used for dating the cave art
(c) Nature
The painting was found in a system of caves in the remote and rugged mountains of East Kalimantan, an Indonesian province on Borneo. The caves contain thousands of other prehistoric paintings, drawings and other imagery, including hand stencils, animals, abstract signs and symbols.
Co-author Maxime Aubert, from Griffith University in Australia, commented:
"The oldest cave art image we dated is a large painting of an unidentified animal, probably a species of wild cattle still found in the jungles of Borneo - this has a minimum age of around 40,000 years and is now the earliest known figurative artwork."
The animal appears to have a spear shaft stuck in its flank and is one of a series of similar red-orange coloured paintings, which were made with iron-oxide pigment. These paintings, which include other depictions of animals along with hand stencils, appear to represent the oldest phase of art in the cave.
The researchers also dated two red-orange hand stencils, which produced minimum ages of 37,000 years. A third hand stencil had a maximum age of 51,800 years, even older than the animal painting. The authors conclude that rock art locally developed in Borneo between around 52,000 and 40,000 years ago. The older dates for cave artwork raise the distinct possibility that these early paintings were made by our Neanderthal cousins who shared our world with Homo Sapiens.
Re-construction of Neanderthal Man
Our distant relatives, the Neanderthals thrived in Europe for around 300,000 years before modern humans arrived. Excavations in Ibex, Vanguard, and Gorham’s Caves in Gibraltar have revealed evidence of Neanderthal occupation dating to possibly as late as 28,000 years ago. Modern humans interbred not only with Neanderthals, but also with our recently discovered relatives the Denisovans, as well as a currently unidentified population of pre-modern hominins.
Cranial features of Modern Man and Neanderthal compared

A jawbone from a man who lived 40,000 years ago reveals that six to nine percent of his genome is Neanderthal, the highest amount ever found in a modern human specimen. This remarkable find indicates that a Neanderthal was in his family as close as four generations back in his family tree - potentially his Great-Great Grandfather!
The use of symbolism - the ability to let one thing represent another in the mind - is one of those traits that set our animal species apart from all others. Tracing the origins of abstract thought and behaviours, and the rate at which they developed, are critical to understanding human development. It underpins artistic endeavour and the use of language.
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